a year ago, i was waking up--or still awake--i'd spent a good part of the week 'stuck' in miami. there was red bull, a hurricane that didn't pass miami and good times. i came back and walked out of my job at new york new york after being fed up and having my schedule cut and reading my horoscope and the birds left town and michele took their place. still the raccoon holding on to her shiny thing. i was living in my grandmother's house.

two years ago, i was going to work at compusa after having no sleep after having been in jail all night after being arrested two streets from my house while frou frou sang 'it's your life.. you've only got one.' i was living in the little termite house on jeffords street that is not so much covered in termites now as it is painted yellow.

three years ago, i was living in the trailer, taking the bus cause the saturn was months dead, taking two classes (e/w synthesis & creative writing) and hoping to get to see the dalai lama in miami. my father wasn't living with us and my brother would shortly be in jail.

four years ago, we were still in tarpon, i was in that sharp place between compusa and tiffanys, there was no money and only mountain dew and i had yet to see fall.

five years ago--i look up and there is a picture of me looking back at me, from five years ago, plus a month, from a trip to new orleans. it was the first time i had dyed my hair black. five years ago, i saw my boyfriend at the time, who i'd not seen nor spoken to since that trip. consequently, i turned down someone who'd approached me because i didn't think he was serious and i was getting back what i wanted. i was on more drugs than i mentioned, and back then, i never mentioned any of them.

six years ago, i was at ucf. at that point, unsure what i was doing or where i wanted to be. six years ago, i was still in my first relationship, was pretending to go to classes, and the mtv music video awards were still bad. this from aug 30 should probably sum it up:
kingofalltears: you're like a whore with self esteem

kingofalltears: you can't sell yourself

kingofalltears: but you reallllly want to

seven years ago.. christ. it was a different world. or, deep in the transition between worlds, anyhow. sean was in town for labor day, having just moved to orlando for school--a year before i would go--he bought tickets for steph and i to go and see dave matthews band.. that show we went to, we ended up with the exact same seats we had the last time we went. i got hit in the head with a cup. my mom was still living in the house.. somewhat, anyhow. that was the famed summer i spent by myself in that house, my brother was living with my dad, my mom was with keith in st pete. the beginning of sleep deprivation and the advancement of my affinity for run on sentences. you can see it here or there, long ago.

let's take a look, shall we? we have such gems as:

"I hope I'm not becoming one of those people who need people around them to feel good."

HAHHAHA

"Because my parents got divorced this morning ... they shouldn't allow people who have just been divorced to drink alcohol. They should give it to their kids. ... Yeah. Seriously. If I go mad, it will be on account of that. But I'm fine. Really."

"i've come to decide in the past few hours that there is something wrong with me. maybe i'm slowly losing my sanity. i'm not saying depression because i'm almost firm that's not what this is[...] but yes, something wrong with me. all i do is sleep and go on the computer. i've absolutely NO motivation to do ANYTHING else. it's horrid. ..of course, my sleepless mind could just be exaggerating things. for all i know, this could just be the last few days i'm talking about. i have no concept of time any longer. saturday night feels like a week ago."

yeah sara, that doesn't sound like depression at all. no, ma'am.

"I wake up, I check my mail, I eat my bowl of cereal, I go to school. I go through the motions of the day, I laugh, I daydream, I do my work, I make faces at Tara from across the room and she understands me perfectly. I come home, I hang out with Sean or I sit here alone + content with my boredom. I go online and read old mail and I sit and think. I evoke the same emotions I had the first time, even though I try to find something new, and I think of better things to say, better ways to word things... but still, the same me behind the stuff. And I think... true apologetic thoughts, and hope that maybe some day I will understand what I am thinking and myself enough to apologize with a means to the madness... an explanation for the way I work and why I do and say the things I do and I know that doesn't make any difference that the numbness still sits when your foot falls asleep, but maybe some day it will wake up and so will I and be able to rationalize the dream and explain it to those who sit and laugh and yell at me while I sleep."

oh mn. my old self makes my new self laugh a lot. and i may have laughed back then, but not with the solid knowledge of the new self. someday, maybe, technology will bring us to that state of all completetion and my old self will be writing one of those old things i've just looked back upon and will be re reading it as we always do, but instead of clicking the back link she'll find the forward link takes her somewhere new.. if you could read everything you had to say about the future would you read it anyway? i don't know if i would.. i don't know that i wouldn't.. would it change things? lord knows that i've known things in the past seven years and went straight forward and through them anyway, whether i'd accepted them as truth or whether i thought i could change things. would i have stayed with nick those extra seven months if i knew? would i have gone to ucf if i knew for sure? would i have wasted all that money and wasted all that time and done all those things that weren't good for me if i knew that later on i would look back on them and say, you know, wow, sara. some of that was a bit unneccessary, a bit over the top.

if i could push the button now and read everything i would have to say about the future.. would i read it? would i want to know if it will work out with tony? will i move out of this apartment in december or will i stay here? will we ever find a drummer? who gets married first will that baby be black or white will i continue to get along well enough with people in washington that i brave the rain and snow or will i stay in florida until it sinks will the national id card be the end of privacy will i ever get my hand bitten off by a seal will my family outlive their individual issues or will they succumb to them will i be rich in life or will i lay, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the end, dreaming a fake life i wished i'd had all along

can i be my own magic eight ball, have i experienced all of this already

or is it all just a mystery
to unfold