IN CASE YOU AREN'T JIGGY WITH IT

first of all, i really don't even know what "jiggy with it" is supposed to mean. like, what the hell is a jiggy and why do you want to be with it? anyway, if you want to be jiggy with it and don't know what i'm going on about and are suddenly BLOWN AWAY BECAUSE WHERE HAS ERIN BEEN SINCE GRADUATION because, again, you aren't jiggy with it, i've been at cawlijj since late june. i am, however, still writing. if you care, which you may or may not, and aren't already aware, which you may or may not be, my current musings are being posted on a new blog. in case you notice that there are approximately 3 months of poetry/random stupid stuff about my life missing between my last Alis post and my first hbhb post, it is on another blog i used during the summer. AND NOW YOU ARE ALL JIGGY WITH IT. CONGRATULATIONS. this has been an unnecessary post spamming your blog feed and you are welcome.



YOURS WITH JIGGY,

--ERIN

Quite,

This is a greeting.

This is the hello spoken between the title page and "chapter 1."

This is the real El Dorado and this is the pyrite on your bedside table.

This is an old man yelling at you to get off his lawn and this is the smell of the cookies his late wife used to bake.

This is the promise that nothing will change and this is the certainty that nothing is static.

This is the balloon blanket you carried around for years and this is the day you realized you had lost it.

This is your mother kissing your newly bandaged knee and this is the lifeguard blowing the whistle at you for splashing.

This is a rogue planet and this is a strawberry patch.

This is a visit to the dentist's office and this is the reason you don't like the right side of your face.

This is empathy and this is apathy.

This is the ring on a seventeen-year-old finger and the wedding dress with room for the baby and this is a Facebook status three months later about the husband's creepy inmates.

This is a motif of birds and this is a cliché called "the whispering wind."

This is the broken bone in PE class and this is the line between "friends" and "more than."

This is the wall you built around your happiness and this is the tunnel it dug to free itself when it heard you crying.

This is this is the scar on your knee from shaving and this is the laugh lines your mother is starting to get.

This is a refrigerator magnet and this is the ice cream melting when the power is out.

This is a wish upon a star and this is the star's mother asking him to come home for Christmas.

This is a knife in the toaster and this is the feeling of her hand in his.

This is a pair of sweatpants and this is a girl who doesn't wear heels below three inches.

This is a word and this is a warning.

This is a poem and this is a broken bottle in a high school parking lot.

This is a question asked and this is a teacher who doesn't like being interrupted.

This is the uncertainty in your eyebrows and this is the swear words you no longer notice you say.

This is a plastic bag in the breeze and this is the ground view of the Eiffel Tower.

This is a birthday the day of graduation and this is the relapse that made his mother cry.

This is a religion and this is a mythology.

This is your heart and this is your left lung.

This is your appendix and this is every organ that actually does something.

This is an interpretation and this is a reality TV show.

This is confusion and this is the curiosity that killed the cat.

This is the boy who forgot about alliteration and this is his brother who can't spell onomatopoeia.

This is a rock star and this is a local radio station.

This is your green eyed family and this is your genetic difference.

This is a one word answer and this is the draft you had saved as "like srsly wat."

This is the scar on your elbow and this is the chip in your tooth.

This is the shirt that fell on the ground in the back of your closet and this is the skirt that your mom bought you that you've worn once.

This is more than a dream and this is less than a nightmare.

This is the lighter fluid you used to start the fire and this is the burning newspaper you can't look away from.

This is your conscience questioning your motives and this is your muscles remembering how to speak and walk and run and dance and breathe and blink and smile and cry.

This is your reason for getting up and this is the reason you can't fall asleep at night.

This is a first impression and this is a closed-casket service.

This is the broken front door latch and this is the spider you asked your father to kill.

This is your heart written on the back of a scan tron and this is a question asked to the callous your pen made.

This is the neighbor's fence and this is a "beware of dog" sign.

This is saying harmless and this is saying "innocent enough."

This is a lie and this is the red leaves falling.

This is everything you deserve and this is nothing you've wished for when the time is all 1's.

This is a coil of wire and this is the smell of the mulch your father and brother spread yesterday.

This is exact and this is estimation.

This is the journey and this is the name of the infinity symbol.

This is an ampersand and this is everyone who didn't know what an ampersand was.

This is all you want it to be and this is more than you told your mother about.

This is the inside of your soul

And this:

This is a goodbye.

--Erin

Random thoughts as graduation looms over my head:

My fourth pair of pointe shoes and my second pair of Latin heels are hanging on my closet door as trophies to remind myself of the pain I've gone through for them. My ballet costume is in the closet and my medley dress is back at the school.

There are three garbage bags full of clothes I never wear anymore on my floor, waiting to be sifted through by my sister before being donated to the DI.

My duffel bag is covered in sequins and glitter from costumes it no longer contains.

A box with a new duvet cover and sham should be arriving from Pottery Barn soon and my mom is trying to plan a trip to Ikea.

I put in my two weeks notice at work and my manager said she'd try to get me off the schedule next week.

I need to buy a laptop sometime in the next few weeks.

The sign-in book for Cassie's wedding just came from shutterfly. She and Michael are living representations of Ken and Barbie. Not like the weird people who got sliced and diced to look like dolls, I mean they look like Ken and Barbie if they were life-sized and normally proportioned.

The poster I bought for my dorm room just got here. (Ignore my toes in the shot)

I'm going to walmart to find lipstick to match the kind I stole from my mom so that I can give that back someday.

****update****

Replacement lipstick has been acquired. Also, nails have been re-painted. It also appears as though my room has gotten messier.

Remind me to write a check to David for $50 from that one time he ordered rhinestones for me and to give Alyssa the $6.50 for leotard straps.

I need to stop buying so much food. I promised my mom I'd buy her butterbeer while we're at Harry Potter world for my graduation/birthday trip.

I decided to make a bucket list on the back of an envelope from someone's graduation announcement, mostly because of this post.

Now that my days aren't defined by when I have dance and what homework needs to be done, I have been taking naps on the couch with increasing frequency.

Like, what am I even supposed to do with my life? Eat exorbitant amounts of goldfish and watch Criminal Minds reruns?

I feel purposeless right now, even when they tell us "a new chapter of our lives is about to start." The end of this chapter probably won't be terribly gripping, considering all I'm gripping at this point is a remote in one hand and a Popsicle in the other.

--Erin

because it was 3:22 when i started this post and i have 7 more class periods of high school

i haven't slept with a nightlight since i discovered my lack of fear of the dark.

i probably should, because now i've started to wonder if i'm one of those girls who looks better with the lights off.

i still sleep with a stuffed animal, a dolphin corinne bailey rae gave me for my birthday a long time ago. we were friends, but she was always better than me. sorry for that. i named him edgar by the way. he has your eyes

i wonder if he keeps the dark safe for me. i wonder if he cares about my safety.

this is why i need to learn how to fall asleep faster.

i've discovered that if i try to go to bed after two, i just stare at the dark, blurred ceiling until i hate myself.

i wouldn't call myself an insomniac, because i really do sleep a lot at night. i'm not nocturnal, as much as my mom might think so.

i am a fairly paranoid person, and i was always afraid of getting stolen walking down the street back home from my friend's house at night, despite the fact that she lived 5 houses away and Alpine is about as safe as you can get at this point.

in solitude here, though, i can pretend that i didn't waste years of my life on the maximum ride series and i can pretend that no one needs my help and that no one thinks about my hair color and i can pretend that i'm done with small talk about what i want to do with my future and i can pretend that my grandma will stop trying to convince me that i should be a pharmacist and her skeptical looks will stop criticizing my choice to go into English.

i can pretend i've never felt judgement and i can pretend that i'm good enough for everyone's expectations, including mine.

this pillow holds the ghosts of old tears and my bedroom is better at keeping my secrets than my eyes.

goodnight, consciousness.

let me be, tonight.

let me be.

--erin

Talk is real (not cheap)

Hi, I'm Erin.

I like long walks on the beach and taking pictures of the sunset.

No, scratch that. Starting over.

Hi, I'm Erin.

I like long naps in my bed and writing poems at sunset.

I'm Erin,

And I'm always the first m name called on a role because we spell it M-A-C. When asked how to spell my name, all of my family has the same response. M-A-C lowercase D-O-N-A-L-D. My sister is marrying a guy whose last name is Arntsen. She won't get a break from spelling mistakes.

I'm Erin,

And my uncles used to call me Erinski.

I'm Erin,

And when my mom had me, they gave her the epidural too soon, so it had started wearing off by the time I was born. She still gives me grief for that.

I'm Erin,

And I'd rather take a bath than a shower.

I'm Erin,

And sometimes I have to keep myself from yelling, "I'm smarter than you" at people when they have a condescending tone.

I'm Erin,

And I drink more Dr. Pepper than water.

I'm Erin,

And sometimes I'd rather stay in and read a book than interact with society.

I'm Erin,

And I'll never get over Augustus Waters.

I'm Erin,

And maybe I'm just a contrary teenager, but people telling me what to do makes me want to do the exact opposite of what they've told me to do.

I'm Erin,

And I don't think I've been to a party since sophomore year and I don't think I've been invited to one since maybe 8th grade and I haven't even had a birthday party since I was thirteen.

I'm Erin,

And even though my dog is almost 11, arthritic, nearsighted, covered in lypomas, prone to seizures, and likely to bark at what I can only assume are ghosts at the door, I still call him a puppy.

I'm Erin,

And I've been on both ends of unreciprocated feelings.

I'm Erin,

And I don't really know how to decipher my own thoughts at this point.

I'm Erin,

And I cry during movies and reading books and I cried when I watched the trailer for TFiOS the other night.

I'm Erin,

And I also cry when I laugh, but mostly out of the right eye.

I'm Erin,

And I'm going to BYU. I'm going to major in English. I'm going to be alone there.

I'm Erin,

And one time my friend's mom was in the room while my music was playing and she called The XX "getting high music."

I'm Erin,

And I'm terrified of a lot of things, including, but not limited to, spiders, rejection, failure, driving on the freeway, death, uncertainty, my new husband smearing cake on my face at our wedding, and never having a husband.

I'm Erin,

And I've written multiple love poems about one boy.

I'm Erin,

And I've loved and I've been loved but I've never been kissed.

I'm Erin,

And I started crying when someone made fun of me for it, even if it was just "harmless teasing" from my best friend.

I'm Erin, 

And I have been that girl crying in the bathroom before, and I have no desire to be her again.

I'm Erin,

And I have been hit in the face with a banana peel.

I'm Erin,

And I've been to four concerts, including Hannah Montana when I was 11.

I'm Erin,

And I'm not super comfortable with my body because the mirror tells me I'm fat even though my mom tells me I'm curvy.

I'm Erin,

And my parents have told me I'm their smartest child and we all hope that Cade and Summer can get scholarships for football and cheerleading, respectively, because, let's be honest, they're not too focused on academics.

I'm Erin,

And I drive too fast and I roll my windows down even after the A/C has cooled off and I listen to my music too loud but I'm pretty sure the bible says, "thou shalt not listen to Sleigh Bells at a volume below 30." (I pulled into my driveway with the volume at 36 today and my little sister's friend standing down the street heard it well enough to start dancing to it.)

I'm Erin,

And I graduate from high school and childhood on the same day, but I usually feel like I'm already finished with both and as much as I wish I had, I've never felt different on my birthday. I have a feeling that 18 will just stay a number. 17 felt the same as 16 and 16 felt the same as 15, because as much as I told myself I'd get my license and a supermegafoxyawesomehot boyfriend as soon as I turned 16, that was never very realistic.

I'm Erin,

And I probably shouldn't swear as much as I do.

I'm Erin,

And I couldn't even be bothered to go to seminary graduation.

I'm Erin,

And my aunt once described our family as "righteous but irreverent," but mostly I'm just the latter.

I'm Erin,

And I used to think I was a pessimist, but I'm calling myself a realist now because if I can't hold on to reality, I have nothing.

I'm Erin,

And apathy sleeps in my bed with me.

I'm Erin,

And my eyes are blue but people still tell me they're green or they're gray and if we can't agree on something as simple as the eye color of a seventeen year old wanna-be poet from Utah, then how are we supposed to find world peace?

I'm Erin.

Erin Nicole Macdonald.

And I'm done being afraid of my potential.

I

Am 

Erin

And I will live like someone cares.

I

Am

Erin

And I will live like I care.

I

Am

Erin

And you will remember my name.

I

Am

Erin

And I was always Erin, even when I was Alis.

I

Am

Erin,

And I'll never be anyone else.

I

Am

Erin

And I'm moving to Paris.

I'm moving to Paris.

Don't try to stop me.

Just you wait.

Wait for the cliche yet obligatory pictures of me and the Eiffel Tower, because Paris said the words that Mesa and Alpine and Provo could never quite get past their teeth.

He said, "I love you, and I'm willing to wait."

I love you, too, Paris, and I'm on my way.

I'm on my way.

--Erin