One thing leads to another...

Gah.

I'm hungry and sleepy and I don't want to write. I want to go to bed.

Can't go to bed, must finish assignments, then shower and maybe sleep.

Also, I'm out of cheese. This is a travesty. I like that word--travesty.

My parents have moved their closing date for the house up to the 21st of this month. They're moving my dad and the cats up as soon as possible afterwards. I may be spending a lot of Saturdays in Grand Rapids this semester. Who wants to come with?

I'm living for the weekend, which can be a dangerous thing to do. Time passes so quickly now.

I'm desperate to get an apartment and a job now. I've discovered that I kinda like my boring ol' receptionist-type job. It's sorta nice. I just wish we had the internet hooked up in there. Blogging from work would be good. Or IM-ing, or e-mailing.

I need someone to love me. I don't know why it's such an intense thing right now, but it is. I hate it; I don't want to be some needy, clingy person, or to have to define myself by what someone else thinks of me. But there I am. I hate it and I don't know how to stop it.

Aw hell, saying that I don't know why I'm feeling this way is a lie. I know why. Everything's changing, and I hate change. My home--MY HOME--is going away forever. I grew up in that damn house. We moved in when I was about two and a half years old. It's the only place I remember. I may not be fond of the town, but I love that house. I love the oak trees, and the apple trees we planted in the backyard, and the raspberry bushes. Our old dog, Barnaby, is buried in the garden, and for the past few years a sunflower has always grown on his grave, unplanted. We lived through a tornado in that house and lost the huge old tree in front and you can still see the remains of the storm damage in some of the trees. We have a red brick planter out by the sidewalk that matches the brick facade on the front of the house, and I'll always remember helping my mother plant it full of impatiens, and seeing them mound up like a red and white and pink bubble by the end of summer. I know where the one creaky step on the staircase is (second one up from the first landing). I remember not to stand below the miniature chandelier in the front hall when I'm putting on my coat because I'll accidentally hit it and send it swinging wildly all over the place. The dimmer switch on the light in the bathroom is fussy, and you have to know how to hit it just right in order to turn it on. My dad built a playhouse for me way back when I was little and we used it as a clubhouse with the kids from across the street. I know the people in four out of the five houses that surround ours (the fifth, our neighbor to the north, just moved in a few months ago after the old woman who lived there ended up in a nursing home after her husband died). You can see the lake sparkling from my parents' bedroom window if you peer through the trees and squint. The wallpaper in the parlor has been there since my parents bought the house 18 years ago, and has yet to peel or fade. We have a photograph of my mom lying on top of the new kitchen counter after she and my dad finally finished installing it when they remodeled the whole room, many years ago.

More memories will resurface as the time to move draws near. It's funny; I used to picture inheriting the house from my parents when I was much older. I used to ask how much longer they had until they would own it completely (until the mortgage was paid off). I asked when I was about 8 or 9 (bright kid, I understood these things) and they said they'd own it by the time I was out of college. I'm not resentful... just wistful. Nostalgic. Sad.

Well, I've gone and rambled far longer than I meant to. I'm still working through my feelings about a lot of things. So please excuse the stream-of-consciousness writing thing I'm up to now. It'll get better; things always do.