the nights belong to boats and lovers.

Last summer could have been the best yet. It was everything and anything i could have asked for. Filled with boats, sunsets, skinny dipping, lovers, and best friends...
This summer however, has a strange twist. With a couple of my best friends not there, and the boy moving away, it has potential to suck. However, here's to redemption. Here's to working two jobs that may or may not kill me... But here's to my best, Charly MacCarl (and maybe rebec if she's here) and the summer of our lives that awaits us. Maybe we wont have everything we want to have this summer, but we will have eachother and thats all we need.
Here's to many more summer nights on boats, tatoos, roadtrips, our own cars, hanging out, getting super tanned, going to the gym every day, parties, concerts, spontaneity, doing all those things we want to do before we're tied down, living freely, all nighters, learning, figuring out our lives, camping, honestly this list goes on. We will live the dream this summer Charly. I promise.

get up.

Sometimes you have to step back and ask yourself, is this everything you've hoped for, is this everything you've dreamed for your life? And when you realize it's not, its a matter of stepping far back to see where it was that you went wrong...


Where did i go wrong? I always wanted more for my life. All this is great, i love the memories we've made this year and i wouldn't change them. But somehow i know there's still more to life.

"Oh but im so small, i can barely be seen,
how can this great love be inside of me?
Look at your eyes, their small in size,
but they see enormous things. "- mewithoutyou.

closure.

this song is so fitting to right now:
"this is the least that i can do, you know i'm bad at calling you. The best way i can extend the lonely words i miss you... i'll say it but i'm sure you knew, you're what i look most forward to, coming back to where i've been, i'll just leave it at this...

Wait for me to move out west, it's ok if you don't. i hope you know you're my favorite thing about the west coast. i wish i stayed, i hope you wait. So here i am counting down the days till california comes..." -Playing Favourites by The Starting Line
I'll always count down the days. Even if we move on and find other people.

summer.

Sometimes i think i will never feel happiness as strong or as pure as i did that morning in late august. The morning we woke up to work in the backyard for hours, moving twigs, digging trenches for the sprinkler, and throwing bricks into the lake. We could have been out there for hours but it hardly mattered because we were all together, laughing at each other, and making stupid inside jokes that would carry on for far too long..


I remember the sun, and how bright it was that day. I remember the lake and how cool the water was as it lapped around our faces in the tube. I remember how lazy the day felt as we collapsed on the trampoline with five thousand blankets, his arms wrapped so tight around me. I remember the comfort, and the laughter, of being in a group but just talking to him. We all lied there for hours planning out our evening, feeling the potential of the night air. I remember the wind as it whipped through our hair in the car he drove too fast. I remember the rap songs that played too loudly through the speakers. I remember the change room we had shower parties in, the sauna we sat in, the house we made Kraft dinner in, the dock we always ended back on to look at the stars, the smiles on our faces, the love of the night air.

I know the future will hold many more memories, with different friends and different boys. But all i really want is that memory, with those friends, and him.

letter

i found this letter my freind wrote me before i came to school. it is exactly what i need to hear right now.

"Hey Rae, I know your scared about this year and moving away from home, but there's a few things i wanted to tell you before you go this summer. You are one of the most genuine people I've met. Your different than everyone else because your yourself, and no one can take that away from you. I want you to remember who you are right now.

You may have a hard year because your someone who sees a deeper meaning to life than others. You live for bigger things and you care for more than just yourself. Your life has significance that goes beyond alcohol and endless partying. The people around you won't understand this because it's not what their used to. Just keep your head up and stay strong. And don't let them change you. You don't need to change for anyone, ever, because who you are right now is amazing.

Promise me you will never settle for less than you deserve. Whether it be guys or friends. Your ability to be vulnerable with people is beautiful but if your not careful people will walk all over you. Guard your heart and your mind and you will be fine, you are strong and you can handle whatever is thrown your way as long as you believe. Don't listen to what people say, you know yourself and they don;t, so they dont matter.

Also remember you are so beautiful; inside and out. You have so much potential to go very far in life, i know you will change the world someday with your joyful spirit. Maybe not the whole world, but i know that all the lives you meet along your journey will be changed or influenced in someway by your life. You dream big and it will intimidate people but stay focused.

Above all else remember your purpose in being at school. Keep on living to change the world."

undone.

in the act of being yourself you are automatically put at great personal risk. How that person responds to seeing you completely undone will change how you perceive yourself, whether you realize it or not. There are people who will mock you, who will laugh in arrogance at your vulnerability. These are the people that create the deep emotional scars that never quite heal. There are also people who will love you, use you, and then leave you, and i don't mean in a physical way, rather emotionally. Perhaps these people create deeper wounds because one begins to wonder what they could have done to drive them away.

And then there are the people who can see your real self and love you in return. These are the people who validate our existence, make us feel loved and desirable as a person. These are the friends who you will let see you at your worst; the friends who stay up with you into the early hours of the morning helping you fix the problems you created. The people that reach into your lives and change it for the better. The people you cannot live without. The people that hurt to let go. These people become our home, the comfort one feels in their presence is unspeakable.

I wish i had the courage to be myself all the time. I wish i could be loved through the suffering and stupid mistakes i constantly make. I wish i wasn't so scared of what people think of me.

spring fever.

i was up at 8am this morning. Probably the earliest i've been up in a long time. But guess what, i saw the sun creep it's way across campus. and it was beautiful.
spring is in the air. i am so so soooo stoked

real

there is something missing.

i just can't put my finger on it. i felt whole for a while,

but i just can't explain it. it's gone.
bring it back. give me hope, give me joy, give me laughter.
give me something real for once
i'm tired of loving fake things
i want meaning.
i want those summer nights back we spent on the boat,
i want the days back we spent on the cottage dock.
all our days off from camp that we cottage hopped
and made the most of everything life offered us..
we were so alive. and we didn't even realize it.

beloved

There are so many voices in this world,
"You have to be someone of influence" "Your only someone if people know your name" "You have to have power to make it in life" "You have to prove your worthy"
But there is always one speaking below the others, the one i wish i would listen to more often instead of the others..
"You are beloved"
I don't have to prove myself.

...

" Lord, make me a channel of your peace;
that where there is hatred, I may bring love;
that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;
that where there is discord, I may bring harmony;
that where there is error, I may bring truth;
that where there is doubt, I may bring faith;
that where there is despair, I may bring hope;
that where there are shadows, I may bring light;
that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted;
to understand, than to be understood;
to love, than to be loved.
For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.
It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.
It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life.
Amen. "