I don't know if I've ever even heard this song before.

I've just gotten the craving to be a part of something. It probably had something to do with the fact that there was a television commercial on that was showing scenes from a bunch of movies where the heroes are being chased by their enemies who want to kill them and no one else has any idea that its happening and due to the fact that I had just watched an old Audrey Hepburn movie "Charade" and there's a scene like that.

But to be in the middle of something so incredible that it'll change...something. Something significant. Something secret. Something people don't realize the importance of until long after.

I want to do something. I want to change the world. I want to get into politics and change the way our country works. I want to stop the corruption, end the tyranny. Stop the passing out of bribe checks on the House floor. Actually accomplish something and help the people of the United States. Make big businesses not about making money, but about providing services to the consumers. Shouldn't that really be the point?

It makes me want to be President. Surely then I could do something, couldn't I?

I'm your standard W.A.S.P. --White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. After that I draw a blank. How would I actually be able to accomplish my goals? Is the presidency really what I should aim for, or do I need to start at a smaller level, like a state or changing Congress from the inside out, then pursue the White House? Or would coming out of nowhere draw attention to my quest?

At least I have plenty of time to think about it. Since I can't be president until I'm thirty five or something. And if I started to raise money now, I might have enough by then to print a hundred buttons or throw a really pathetic kick-off party for my campaign. Or I could start campaigning now. "Joy for 20-something. Whenever she's old enough."

You should know by now
But I know I need to tell you how
I don't always have the words
So I pray that it's my heart you've heard
I love to hear your heart
Telling of your love
Telling me you'll stay (forever)
I thank you for your touch
And for loving me this much
To say the things I need to hear...

Remember I promised forever
Life brings change
But my promise is the same
And through these years we've been together
Life has made us grow
But through it all I know
No matter what may come
My heart was made for you forever

I need to confess
It's hard to show my weakness
I want so much to show You strength
Without revealing everything
You know what I always say,
"When you're weak, you're strong, to me"
It's another way of loving me
'Cause when I see your heart,
I get carried through
The reasons why I fell in love with you...

You've dreamed with me
Every dream came true
You've shared with me every emotion
Every tear, every loss, every road that we have crossed
I have always found a home in you...

--Made For You, Watermark

Things I've come to realize.

During our last eighth grade open house, I got partnered up with Autumn to handle a group of four silent kids. Autumn and I sit next to each other in class, so we kindof know each other. We're comfortable around each other.
As we would leave tech areas, I would often be talking with people that were there. Like when we were leaving Media Broadcasting and I wanted to get my hug from Josh. Instead of taking the group right down the hall, she waited for me at the door with the group. I totally didn't expect it at all. It struck me as odd at the moment, but it later occurred to me that she respected me. She respected me enough to wait for me even though we were walking just down the hall.
My classmates have my back. They think it's crap that our teacher says one thing and then turns around and doesn't follow the rules he makes. He plays favorites with people who haven't been in our class for very long, and my classmates think its total crap. So when he had Rachel do the afternoon Raven Report instead of me, Autumn and Kat and Ty and Joe and Amanda asked why.
And even though our teacher never answered and probably never even heard, its really nice to know that they will stand up for me. In the kind of environment I'm beginning to realize our school is, it's a relief to know that I don't have to ask for their support, and to know that we'll all stick up for each other. Because we're classmates. And we're close. Sure, I don't see any of them outside of school, but I know where they work. I know who they date. I know which classes they hate, I know what they think about school lunch. And I know we all are fed up with the crap we go through in that classroom every single day.

And as I walk around the school with my group of eighth graders, the juniors and seniors in the technical areas know me. I have no idea who most of them are, but they know my name and they'll tell my kids that I'm not going to put up with their crap. I opened a door for one girl today after school and she says "Thanks, Joy!" and runs up the hallway. I doubt I would recognize her if I saw her again tomorrow. I don't know if it's due to my two broadcasts on the Raven Report or my pathetic interaction with most of the teachers in the school that's led to it, but it's certainly nice to be known. Like at my middle school. I go back for Sally's moving up ceremony and the girl who opens the front door of the school for me is so excited to see me. All I knew about her at the time was that her sister was a year ahead of me at Tech and was in Media Broadcasting.

Today I found out a little more about her.
She's in Health Pro, a junior, doing clinicals. While my partner and I were out getting interviews for our Media Broadcasting story, I see her in the hall right before she was going to go in and take a skills test. Light conversation ensues. Near the end of my Sociology class, she pulls an empty desk up next to me and tells me her results. A perfect hundred. I thought it was a little weird that she was having a conversation with me, but I was cool with it. She talks about how she looks a lot like her mother, so almost anyone, including her step father, could pass as her father. I tell her how different people tell me I look like my mother and others think I look like my father. "I think you look more like your mom" she says.
The gears are turning in my head --when did she ever see my mom? I shake it off. And the bombshell.
"I saw your portrait...... He was one of my patients..."
And it didn't really surprise me.
"I was waiting for something like that to happen."
She had come over because she wanted to give me kudos. When she found out my father was in that kind of condition, she couldn't believe it. And since she discovered that she had been trying to figure out how to get me to bring up my dad in a conversation so that she would be able to tell me.
And it amazes me how much respect people have for me in my school. I've been realizing how much my classmates do, but even my teachers. My social studies teacher told me he was getting divorced long before he announced it to his runners or the class. My Spanish teacher told me about how torn up she was after her grandmother died and how she picked up the phone the next Saturday and dialed her grandmother's number while trying to dial her father's because she had done it every Saturday for over ten years. My yearbook teacher tells me about how worried he is about forcing his little girl to grow up too fast. It reminds me of a question my mother has asked me --"Is it normal for kids to have that kind of connection with your teachers?" But I still don't know the answer. Because I don't know why they tell me things like that. And I don't know why people know my name. And I don't know why I still feel so stupid when... when I can't talk to people that I want to. When I can't make the words come out and when I can't pick up the phone to call my dad or my grandmother or my aunt or my friends. When I can't stand up for myself when people are tearing me down to my face. When I can't tell people that their stupid jokes about people having seizures or strokes or oral sex or dying because they didn't take their pills really pisses me off. And why I can't make myself care about things that I want to. My friends, my family, the world... things that are important and that are falling apart all around me. Why I can't seem to wake up.

"You look like Ruth. And happy."

The first comment on a picture of me from after my drama performance. It's got me thinking all day about why drama was the class I've been looking forward to taking for a long time. Why OM competition and the night of the Awards Ceremony always gives me a high. Until now, I had just figured it was the rush of the event itself --the thrill of competition, the ecstasy of another fabulous year of Academic Challenge coming to an end on a Wednesday night on the Del Tech stage. But now, I've realized its something else. Something more. Something that would explain why the background of my cell phone for nearly the past year and a half has been the stage lights at Del Tech.
Acting is my.... my.... anti-drama. My drama. My anti-drug. My drug. My crutch. My freedom. No, it's not my life --I don't think I'd be able to devote myself to that.
But it is my escape.
It's my ticket to an amazing journey through time and space. And to get there, I have to bring someone with me; an audience. Stir their emotions, make them feel my pain, weep my tears, cheer for my victories, rage in my defeat, and ultimately leave me to go on with their own lives, leaving me on my stage. And yet know that that isn't my pain, my tears, my victories, my defeat, or my life at all; knowing that it's a lie. An act. A script. But believing in it so much that they can't tell. Make them suspend their disbelief so they suspend their reality and suspend who they are. To make them forget. So that when the lights go down, they become a player. Someone a part of the drama that doesn't have any lines, but knows all of them. Someone who sees all, and eventually knows all that has happened everywhere in the plot. Someone who has become so wound up in the story that their very life hangs in the balance, and is ultimately connected to the outcome of the players on the stage. And that the players become people who become their friends, neighbors, brothers, fathers, sons, and despised enemies by the end, and that they care for every one. That they know every one.
It makes me happy. And if I had more time, or any time for that matter, I'd be out living my life to be happier. Spending weekends and weeknights on the stage. On any stage. Doing just that. And probably coming to find that so much happiness would drive me crazy. Drive me to hate it. Drive me away.
So I suppose it's a blessing that I have no time. That I fill my days and nights with as many activities as I can. Filling my eighteen hour schooldays with all sorts of things and coming home exhausted and asking myself why. Then reminding myself that this is what I wanted. To do everything I've ever wanted to do.
And when I'm lying on my deathbed, I hope I can die without regret of that. And I hope that the people around me can do the same.

We've got the rest of our lives to live out all these dreams

You've been living your life like a sequel
And you're already bored with the plot
As if the cast and the score are more money then before
But the script and the backdrops are stock

We've got the rest of our lives to regret
All the words that we've said here
Did not put our bet,
In the morning
Let the morning find us in bloom

So come on, come on, come on
Lets not be our parents
Oh come on, come on, come on
Lets follow this through
Come on, come on, come on
The skies are on fire
We will rise with the wings of the dawn
And everythings new
And everythings new

Let us rise up like the summer sun
Let these songs awaken the dawn
Let us breathe every breath like a gift to be kept
Let us breathe it all in till its gone

We've got the rest of our lives
To live out all these dreams
That we stayed up tonight talking about
In the morning
To start hoping
But nothing to soon

So come on, come on, come on
Lets abandon this darkness
Oh come on, come on, come on
Lets follow this through
Come on, come on, come on
Everythings bleeding
Well be lit up like fire and gold

When everythings new
And everythings new
When everythings new
And everythings new
When everythings new
When everythings new
When everythings new
When everythings new
So come on, come on, come on

--C'mon C'mon, Switchfoot