and we don't have much room to live

A few days ago I decided I wanted to write a blog about relationships and realism vs. cynicism and now I can't remember why. I'm pretty sure there was some action that took place to make me want to write about these things but I can't figure out what it was for the life of me. Though that could have something to do with the fact that I'm running off of three hours of sleep and am slightly delirious. Maybe I should write this when I'm more awake.

Hold that thought. We'll come back to it.

Today my mom found the box that contained my fancier shoes, my senior yearbook, my current journal and my small collection of make-up. I was stoked, went for the yearbook immediately and spent a good part of the day looking through it. Seeing pictures from all the events and just random days at school made me miss Tustin and Beckman and everything about last year so much. And I can distinctly remember looking at the baby ads and thinking about how weird life is. Every person you know has this entire past full of different friends, different tastes, different memories than the ones you're making now. We are influenced and changed every single day by the things we see around us and every single day we are a little bit different than the day before. That's just crazy to me. In ten years we'll all be so completely different than who we were in high school but I think high school is still a hugely important, defining part of your life. You learn so much more in those four years than just english, math and history. You learn about friendships and betrayal and relationships and experimenting and love and hate and trust and yourself. I kind of really wish I had written a gradtuation speech haha.

Anyway, that was my interesting thought for the day. I was watching The Other Sister and Down to You earlier and they both reminded me again that I wanted to write a blog about relationships. There was a part in Down to You when Julia Stiles comes back from her summer in France and spends the night with Freddie Prince Jr. and all she can think about is the word "married" because one of her friends in France asked her if they were thinking about getting married anytime soon. The way we think of relationships always make me think. I'm pretty sure a lot of my views on the entire topic are the way they are because of my parents. Not that I'm blaming them or anything because I feel like the way I think about relationships and love is a lot more realistic than the way many other people do, even if that makes me somewhat cynical.

But if you really think about it, there's pretty much a set process for love. You meet someone, you date for a while, you get to know each other, maybe fall in love. Eventually you live together, then comes marriage and a baby, and voila! Happily ever after, right? That all sounds kinda silly to me. Especially because of the statistics. How many marriages end in divorce? I don't know the actual numbers but I would hate to become a part of that percentage. I refuse to let it happen. It will take me a long damn time to decide to marry someone because of that fact.

Because of the whole realism/cynicism thing, I'm constantly worried that I'll ruin a relationship by thinking too much. Not that I've had many chances for that because I never really meet people, but I always end up wondering "where is this going?" I have to ask myself what I'm really doing and whether or not it's going to go anywhere. And it's not like I'm trying to find my soulmate or something silly, but if I'm going to date someone, I'd rather have a purpose in doing it than just to have someone to date. As much as I enjoy the company and closeness and affection, I just feel like if you're in a relationship and you think about it realistically and you know it's not going to last forever, how are you supposed to be happy with it now? God, I really do sound like a cynic. But the reality is that most relationships will end, serious or otherwise. Maybe it is more realistic to just have fun with it then, because most of them will end in a break-up, so why not enjoy it while it lasts?

This is turning into some totally non-commital stream of consciousness now and I'm not even sure where I stand in all of this anymore. Maybe that's the point of writing/thinking about anything. To figure out what you really know about it and whether or not you believe in it. Interesting.