Long Time No Blog

I am back to blogging! I don't know if it's permanent, or just a cameo before I retreat to my hiatus. I felt compelled to write because I am wearing knee socks and I've been in the dumps. The best writing is always a product of the dumps. No promises that this will be good writing, though.

As summer comes to a close, I am plagued with longing. Longing for the sunny days I wasted in hibernation. Longing for the excitement I felt in May at the beginning of the season. Longing for autumn so I can layer and wear army green. You can't wear army green in 90 degree weather.

I dislike August. August is such a liminal month. 23 years old feels like August; a liminal age. I'm an acrobat teetering on the tight rope between college student and career woman. I'm stuck in the dead center of the rope; equidistant from either identity. I actually wrote a poem about this same eerie feeling at some point in my adolescence. It remains undated in my notebook. Perhaps because I knew it'd be applicable to many periods in my life, but probably just because I forgot to date it.

The Road

By Sara Jacalone

A while in, I turned around

to see the ground I’d covered.

Facing front,

I saw the same amount ahead.

My breath had grown short.

My muscles fatigued.

And done with my walking I sat.

As the cars rumbled by

and pedestrians passed

I noticed I wasn't alone.

They trampled

and stampeded right on by;

Kicking up dust that

clouded the my mind.

I pondered if I should go on like them,

certainly I wouldn't turn back.

What seemed to be nice

was to sit on the side

idly, while resting my legs.

And while I relaxed there

I might take a nap.

I might even build me a house.

Yet I dust myself off

and I stand with a grunt.

Onward I urge myself forth.

For I know that one like me

won’t be satisfied there.

Beside the road,

in my new house.

I’d peer through the window

and wonder, alone,

what it was I walked toward

once upon a time.

So yeah, I feel like THAT. And it's got me downnnnnnn! I can't and won't stay in this liminality forever, but I feel so stuck. My friends are moving out of their family homes and catapulting into independent adulthood. I can't save a dime because I spend all my $ on shoes and army green clothing in anticipation for fall. It's that kind of irresponsibility that leaves me wondering if I'm even ready to live on my own. But I want so badly to have my own place.

NO SHADE to my wonderful parents who allow me to stay in my beautiful childhood home, I love them but I still feel like an itsy bitsy child draining their metaphorical teats. I want to prove to myself and everyone that I can survive solo. I've taken notice that I'm always trying to prove things, even to myself. I love proof. It's hard for me to fathom the things I can't see.

Wait! I have a proof-related story with a sprinkle of Sara lore for you all.

I was super religious when I was younger, Roman Catholic. I went to mass and youth group and church camp, the whole nine. One time, at church camp in Ohio, me and my friends were debriefing after mass, as one does at church camp. I don't exactly remember what prefaced this moment, but I burst into teary hysterics and shared an awful, horrific, blasphemous thought that had been polluting my mind for a while. In between blinding tears, gasps for air, and apologies for even being so vulnerable, I wiped my snotty nose with the sleeves of my hand-me-down hoodie. HOWEVER, when I calmed myself down and opened my eyes to readdress my shocked peers, I was greeted with blood-stained sleeves. Yeah, my nose started bleeding after I admitted to suicidal ideation at church camp. The distraught counselor quickly ordered a group Hail Mary.

Morbid story, I know. What that instance proved to me was the existence of a hateful God. Or maybe an excited Satan, eager to welcome me to his hell.

Cue Losing My Religion by R.E.M... because I was OVER IT after that moment.

I drop this lore partly to entertain my readers but also to exemplify how proof is often granted to me. These days, I am spiritual, not religious. I pray to the Universe (shout out telescopes for that proof) and I communicate with my higher power through signs. I've found that if you ask specific questions, the Universe will answer you through seemingly normal occurances.

"If I'm going to get this job, show me a deer on the drive to the interview." Now, I live in literal BUCKS COUNTY which is named for its high concetration of such creatures, so it's common, but not necessarily inevitable that I'd pass a deer on my way. These are the type of signs I'm referring to. To me, that's proof enough that something greater than me exists. Leave it to Sara to follow her own religion. I've never been one to conform.

That's about all I have to say because things are getting weird and I'm hungry. If this blog post left you with any distaste, blame the knee socks. Thanks for reading!

TTFN,

Sara