Cupid's such a yacht

So I'm just gonna be honest. I hate Saturdays. I hate myself on Saturdays. Well I don't hate myself, that sounds worse than it is, but I get so ornery on Saturdays for some reason and have a hard time shaking it. I don't know if it's because I sleep in really late or forget to change my underwear or what, but these last two Saturdays have just not been my favorite. I'm not sure if I'm actually going to post this or just type and erase. But whatever. Here it goes.

Danger: entering ranting zone.

There's a whole lot of angst rolling around in some part of my inner being right now, and I figure just telling myself that I'm stupid and probably should just keep it to myself isn't helping me get rid of it. So I'm handling it maturely by ranting on a public blogging service. Hurray! So here it goes. Last night I went to Western because the Lansing Christian girls varsity basketball team was playing Western. Jess Clarke and I decided to go. I realized two things: I am old, and easily forgotten. Oh no, Kelsey, you're not easily forgotten! You were voted "Person I'm most likely to never forget," in high school. But let's be honest, who isn't easy to forget? I mean it's to the point now that people don't even realize I'm an alumni. Devin and Janelle saw me and said hi. I also talked to JT and Coach's wife, a few teachers, and Mrs.Hoffman, but besides them, no one even recognized me. I don't know what I was expecting. I guess freshman year when I would go back, almost everyone still recognized me and people were excited to see me, students, parents, and teachers. Now people don't even realize that I'm affiliated with the school. I used to sort of run the place! My face is on a basketball state championship poster in the gym! I paddled a cardboard canoe through the halls and won best dressed three times during spirit week! I was valedictorian! And now, I'm just some random girl that shows up and sits in the back row of the bleachers, having a hard time believing that the little 7th grade boys are now running around with facial hair and wearing the uniforms that the guys I graduated with wore. High school was kind of sweet back then. But now, Olivia, Megan, Kip, and Jess are the only ones I talk to on a semi-regular basis. Everyone else just drifted away. I'll get an occasional "I miss you" text or wall post, but there have been so many plans that just fell through and people that I don't know anything about anymore. It makes me miss the people from my past and scared for my future.

Some people may say that fizzling high school friendships don't forecast what will happen to my college friendships because the relationships I've had in college are so much deeper and stronger than my high school ones. That isn't really true. I had some really great friendships in high school and people I really enjoyed being with and enjoyed being with me, a lot of them for over a decade. We even have a similar point of reference: we were all from virtually the same area so we had somewhere to go back to that we would all be. But I've seen very few people since graduation, and those few that I have seen were not for very long and not for a long time. So what is going to happen less than a year and a half from now when we all disperse all over the place? The same thing. It's just reality. Not too far down the road, everything will be a memory, a fading memory. People will get used to life without me in it. You'd think I'd at least wait to be a senior before I started getting all into this crap, but like I said, there's lots of angst, and I might as well be honest and admit that I am afraid I'm already starting to get pushed out a little. Or maybe I wasn't as close as I thought I was in the first place.

Also, cupid's a fricken yacht. He forgot me. He picked me last in gym class. I guess only two of my friends have official boyfriends, but lots of others are headed that way and everyone else around here has at least someone to like, someone to invite places. I've. Got. Nothing. The closest thing I've got is the guy from my Core class who looked at me 12 times in the span of three hours and Steve from Eharmony. Core boy probably just had a neck cramp, and I have no idea what Steve looks like and no way to actually communicate with him. So, uh, glad that you're dogs cute, but our cheesy profiles are as far as we go, Steve. It also probably doesn't help that I am more cynical about this kind of stuff than I have been in my entire life. I feel like that part in 500 Days of Summer when the couple walks by holding hands and Tom says "Oh come on! Get a room!" I just chastise every song about the opposite gender that isn't about breaking up, and my favorite kinds of chick flicks are the ones where they don't end up together. Yes, Romeo and Juliet, you should probably die, because your one week of love made you very stupid. The thing is that I don't even really want a boyfriend. I just don't want to be the only one that doesn't. I don't want to be the universal 3rd wheel, or the one who loses weight by running around naked to "I Like It," because she's the only one in the room not out with a guy at night. Mostly, I don't want to be forgotten or put on the shelf for the last year and a half of college, the "best years of my life." When everyone else was in my boat, this wasn't so scary. But now I'm the only one in the boat, and I feel like I don't have a paddle, or anyone to talk to about it without stepping on toes. Maybe I'll cut my hand and befriend a volleyball. Okay, Kels, that's a little dramatic...

All this just goes to show that I need to be here now. Tonight, I am pretty much the only one without a guy to show me that I'm worth his time. But it's okay. I still feel like I'm worth something. If this is as bad as it gets, I'm going to be okay. The way things are right now isn't so bad. Sometimes I feel a little lonely, a little like I don't fit in anymore, but not that often and not too terribly badly. Mostly on Saturdays. And it's only when I get worried about what things are going to look like one month from now, six months from now, one year from now, or ten years from now, that I get all twisted up in knots, ornery, and start resembling and old, crotchety cat lady. So I will be here now. I will take it a day at a time. I will still give the best of myself (though I failed today) to the friends that are interested in it, and if at some point my presence isn't as necessary or noticeable, or I get displaced a little, I will adapt just like I always do. Probably with a little kicking and screaming, just like I always do, but I will adapt nonetheless. I still squirm at the idea and get that little lump in the back of your throat when you're trying not to cry when I think of things the way I like changing, but that is just growing up. And God will provide just like He always does. Whenever I start feeling alone, He gives me someone or usually lots of someones to let me know that I am loved and am worth spending time with, worth being a part of others lives, for at least a time. I guess even if my role at Lansing Christian and my LCS friend's lives is now an insignificant one, it still does not detract from the significance it held at one point or the value that that significance had. And neither will the significance from now, or two weeks ago, or two months ago. God has not dropped me before, He isn't dropping me now, and He is not going to drop me into some pit of insignificance or loneliness anytime soon. I just need to learn to trust and recognize that even if I don't to anyone else, I do have significance to Him, and that as a bonus, He has done a great job of giving me other people to feel significant to as well. He's not gonna stop now, even if I am the only one without a guy.

Be here now, Kels, just be here now. Take it a day at a time.