it's another world, but it's something more than ordinary.

oh man, i spent the past couple of hours archiving some of my old livejournal entries (2003 & 2004). it's too bad that i started that livejournal my sophomore year of undergraduate instead of my freshman. after only a dozen entries my shiny niagara bubble popped. on my 19th birthday. retrospectively, my birthday disaster (involving a boy i liked and a blond friend wearing a cowboy hat) was relatively minor but it did change me. until then most of my new friendships at college were simple and happy. i guess i believed that things would go on that way until we all left. and most of us left before graduation. one friend moved out of state and two quit college all together. i went to ireland, in desperation, studied in limerick and then finished my degree at UB. i have two regrets:

one: i wish that i had waited until i was older to study abroad. i was very lonely when i was there and made a lot of mistakes. lots of good mistakes too of course, but i could have made them at 21 rather than 19.

two: i wish that when i moved to buffalo i had left my life at niagara behind me. instead i tried to take niagara with me; dragged my old friends through too many messy changes. i wronged and i was wronged and i would not give up; i couldn't let go. i don't have those friendships anymore and sometimes it makes me sad. i wish that i had come to buffalo, met my old friends for coffee, got together on holidays and sent postcards. met for reunion bbqs in the summertime, listened to music "for old time's sake;" you know, things that people do with their old friends. i did eventually let that life go, too little too late, and spent the years until now watching those old friends fall apart and getting myself into trouble from the sidelines. i suppose it wasn't all my fault. it's just a damn shame.

i had such high hopes, moving into that first apartment on Lexington!! My brothers helped us clean the place up, my pantry was stocked...and in two weeks i had less than 30$/week for groceries, 4 parking tickets, a leaky ceiling and a gaggle of dead houseplants. it was still fun. it's been an experience, reading back on all of those old entries. i'm the same person. well, i'm richer, thinner, and a better speller so not entirely the same. i downloaded all of the songs i wrote about and they have been making me feel all kinds of things. mostly happy though. the thing i'm most happy about, is that all of my experiences brought me to buffalo. to my lovely apartment. to mike and danielle.

i hope that this summer is fun. i think i'm going to plant some of my peppers and tomatoes in the community garden. it's been really nice to do summertime things again. grilling on the porch, riding my bike to school...life is so much easier when the sun is shining. it truly is.