Everything was so much easier over the phone, when we would see each other maybe 3 weeks total out of the year, and miss each other constantly. Now I don't know how to act around him. It used to be so natural, we could do whatever we wanted. And I didn't have to worry about having to share him with anyone, because when he visited, when it was his time with me, it was his time with me. And now I don't know what to do anymore. He came over yesterday and I was reading, and he was so cold and tired after work that he just crawled into bed next to me and slept for 45 minutes or so while I read my book. And that was comfortable and natural, just having him napping there. But I don't know how to share him with Ellery because I'm not sure if Ellery likes me, or if he thinks that I'm invading on his time with Casey. And during those phone calls, we could be profound and I could tell him anything and we could discuss everything, and now, we're missing that profundity. It seems that all we do is rush through things just to get to the fun, keep the laughter up and leave the serious stuff for when we're both gone next year. I need to talk to him about some things, though, some things that keep burning in my mind and racing through my arteries and flushing through my stomach. I have all of these pent up words inside of me, and no place to put them, except on this blog, and even then I can't say everything because I can't voice it without someone voicing something in return. I feel like I'm losing myself somewhere in my life, like what I want to do and want to be is somehow being replaced by all of the things that I have to do, have to be. I feel trapped, like I'm suffocating in this endless list of necessity and responsibility. I dream of dropping out of high school, not going to college, and writing whenever I wanted, whatever I wanted. But then I think of my other dreams, and my family, and my friends, and I realize that I could never do that, that dropping out is not part of me, that I have duties to uphold to everyone. I feel judged by so many people, I constantly feel uncomfortable in social situations, even with my sisters or friends I've had for a long time. I keep thinking that these people are judging me, thinking, "she's fat, she'll never be loved, she's so boring, does she really think she's funny?, she's so stupid, it's no wonder she's stressed out. trying to pretend to be smart isn't working out too well for her." I feel inadequate to everyone that I meet in every facet of my life. I will never be good enough for anyone, for anything, and I'm not sure how to handle this. I romanticize mental illness, or I used to, so that I could classify myself as a crazy writer, but I don't think I'm romanticizing it anymore. I think that it has just seeped into my brain, somehow changed me for the moment, pushing me down some path I don't want to go on, and can't find my way off of.

I feel so much like dropping out of life. All I wanted to do this afternoon was go to Casey's and sleep. I didn't even want to sleep *with* him, I just wanted to sleep. His house is the most relaxed place I've ever been to. But I had too much going on, and my Winterguard instructor made me cry, and I'm just so tired all of a sudden. And every time I take a shower, I get those old feelings that I had promised everyone went away. Sometiems they come back rampant like this when I'm a little on my crazy side, struggling to get back to reality. Cutting made me feel so in control of everything because I could decide where the cut went, how deep it went. My bleeding was the most controllable thing in my life. And now everything is spinning so out of orbit that I can't control anything anymore, and all I want to do is cry and sleep.

I blog too much (hah!) but I've got so much mixed up emotion churning inside of me. All of our friendship, I was the other girl, the new member to the clan, the girl he talked constantly about and injected herself into his life and his friends lives. It was always that way. I had only known him 4 months before he moved away, and nearly all of the 4 months had been spent with me wanting him. I believed I was in love with him, and sometimes, I still do. And when he moved, we talked on the phone so much, and I visited him and met his friends, and then he came here for me, and I struck up a friendship with his best friend in his new home, and I spent a week out there with him and went to his senior prom with him. He was the one that my friends always heard about, the best friend that I had gathered through a few games of Spin-The-Bottle and naps on his lap in the hallways during Grease rehearsals. And I was secure in this, this being introduced, seeing people realize that I was the embodiement of the person that they'd heard so much about. And when he came home, it was phenomenal for me, because I'd never had him for so long. He's been here since the end of October, and I love having him here, where I can see him every day if I want to. But now it's different, because there's a different girl on the phone, a different place that he's homesick for. His homes may have changed back and forth, but he gathered new friends, new relationships when he lived there, and he got a new girl friend. And I watched him talk to her last night for almost an hour while he, Ellery, and I were playing cards, and I got this intense jealous feeling. I feel somewhat like I'm being replaced, somewhat like he has to have a new person to explain about and pine and miss. I'm his best friend, we will always be there for each other - and I still get that awful feeling that some girl is 3,000 miles away doing what I used to do. Sure, she has her own boyfriend and isn't in love with my best friend, but now she's claiming just as much of him as I did. Instead of being homesick for me, he's homesick for her, and I don't know how to deal with that. I don't wish to be around any of the people I knew before I moved here, and the majority of the people I met during the first 2 years I lived here, I am glad that I don't speak to anymore. And now that he lives here again, he misses all of those people that he met when he lived there. How does one deal with this feeling? I'm so worried about losing my spot as the best, the only friend that's ever truly been nice to him and cared about him. I don't want to be the only one in a world full of assholes, but I still want to be his best, his girl friend that he calls with all of his news and his stress. I don't think that I could handle being replaced, because it's a position that I've been in for so long that it would be impossible to let go. I don't want to lose him, and I don't want to succumb to my jealousy, but it eats at me each time he mentions her name, each time I see that picture he has of her in his room. There used to be a picture of me in his room out there. All of my pictures are lumped with his others in a hutch in his room. I'm probably one of the most insecure people ever, I need constant approval in order to feel good about myself, and I feel so insignificant compared to her sometimes, because I see the way that his face lights up and he smiles and his nature changes when he talks to her, and I can't handle not knowing how I used to make him look when I called, and if I can still evoke that kind of joy from him. I probably have nothing to worry about, but it's just like that whole pregnancy issue - there's that little idea gnawing away at me, and I can't seem to make it stop.

So it's 4:30 in the morning and I still can't sleep, and I keep thinking about all of the things that Casey said. I know I obsess too much about the little things, but like I said before, it's right after your first time that you feel the most vulnerable in your whole life. Willingly, I mean. I mean, we'd talked about it. On the way home from Drew's that night, I brought it up, and he said that he'd been thinking about it ever since I went out to visit him in Albuquerque my sophomore year. That was over two years ago. Two years. And I'd thought about it before, especially when I was in love with him, and I had had this epiphany earlier that same afternoon. Sean had come over, and we went up to my room and we started to tickle each other, which always leads to more, and then I realized that I didn't want it to lead to more with Sean. If anyone, it needed to be Casey, because he alone would understand and appreciate my giving my virginity to him more than anyone. And I didn't want it to be some drunken thing that I just go ahead and get it over with with a guy who doesn't care about me at all when I'm in college. So I told him about it, and he said yes. And New Year's, lying there on my couch, I told him that I thought I was ready. And he pulled me into his arms, and we talked for a long time. And he asked me why him, and I told him because he still made me feel special, he made me feel loved, and I felt no greater bond with anyone in my life than with him. And so, we turned off the lights (my one rule) and it happened. And at the beginning, I was so scared and nervous because I had never really kissed him before. And when I told him this he said, "Oh Sarah..." and then everything was ok. I relaxed more, remembered how to kiss without smashing my nose, learned to relax and not tense up when he touched me. And the sex was one big bumbling and jangling of arms and limbs, clothing and positions. And we even managed to laugh, which made it better. "Do you want to put it on?" No that was not my thing.... and he replied, "Didn't want you to think all your banana practice had gone to waste." A friend had once told me that I would know when I was ready by if I could put the condom on him myself. Hell, I couldn't buy them myself, Amy had to. As long as he was wearing one, I was fine. I had practiced on a banana all those years ago, putting it on gently, not yanking it down. And in the middle of all of that, it became entirely hilarious to me, and everything was ok after that. And then after, when he was holding me, he told me that he'd always wanted me to wait for him, that he would never have told me that, but he didn't want it to go to Sean or any of my other idiot guy friends. I told him that he should have known that I would wait for him. You can't shake a feeling that strong, a feeling that right. And yes, he's had multiple partners, and yes, it was an awkward situation that I wish I could fix a few things in, but you know, it was perfect. It was exactly what I needed my first time to be. He was exactly what I needed my first time to be. And yes, I could go for a few more times, but that probably won't ever happen. We're not lovers, not friends with benefits. We're best friends, always will be. We've stood the test of time and distance, and I just can't see letting go of him. Ever. And I've often fantasized about what it would be like to have his baby and/or marry him, and that wouldn't be so bad. But what I needed then was his love and comfort for me, dashed with a little of his experience and his gentleness, to make everything right. People may say that I should have waited for my one true love, but who knows, maybe he is. Maybe I'll never find my one true love, which would be terrible, as I am the biggest hopeless romantic ever, but I waited nearly 18 years. I wasn't giving that up to someone that I didn't believe in, someone I didn't feel right with. I know that I will never look back on that morning and regret what we did, because I have nothing to be ashamed of. Whatever my future, or my deep dark past holds/held for me, it was all rendered insubstantial that morning, because only we mattered then. That was the "us" that I got for the moment. I still sleep next to him sometimes, even though he says I lightly snore, and so does he, and we're both late hog-the-bed sleepers, because it works. Being comfortable with him was the most important thing in my decision to give my virginity to him; not just comfortable being his friend, but comfortable knowing that whatever happened as a result, we would still stick together, forever and always.

I'm not pregnant. Thank God. I was so worried, because I didn't know how I'd handle it. But on my birthday I got bored, and I started looking at baby names online, and I came up with 16 or so really, really good names. And I began to think about marrying Casey and raising this baby together, and I could feel myself getting comfortable with it. I could even go to college and still be married and have a baby. After all of that anxiety and the naming and the daydreaming, when I got my period, I was upset. I think I actually wanted to have the baby. Sure, I could disappoint my parents entirely, estrange some friends, make things weird with all people overall, and have people stare at me in school, but it would be worth it because I had a baby. Sometimes I think that I'd make a really good mom, others I don't. Sometiems I worry about how much money I'm going to have to spend on my child's therapy, because I am going to screw them up so much with my baggage. But I think that I could do a good job at being a mom, I know that I could. Even if Casey didn't marry me, I could raise the baby by myself. In a sense, I'm sad about the fact that I'm not pregnant, but then again, I'm overly glad, because if I was pregnant, I would have to give up so much, and I'm not sure if I'm ready to stop being the child and start being the mom. I'm too much of a child myself. And all of those women who get married right out of high school, how do they do that? They're not mature enough to handle that, and then they start popping out kids, and where have they gotten? Nowhere. They're locked in a vacancy. And I don't want to be like that. So I'm not pregnant. And that's very, very good.

All I want is to be held. When I slept over at Casey's last night, we slept in the same bed, and it felt so natural. Just tucked in together in flannel sheets and whispers of good night and sweet dreams lingering between us, I felt peaceful. No stress. No afraid of the dark. No bad dreams, no fear of what's going on. And when I woke up, I felt weird, because he wasn't there. He was in another bed, which is understandable, as either set of parents would flip if found us sleeping together, but it was odd to wake up and not see him there. And right now, right now is when I want to be held. I feel vulnerable right now. I think that you feel at the most vulnerable in your life right after you have sex, especially for the first time. Because it's so awkward, and you wonder if you did it right, and if your partner was disguasted by you, or if you missed something, or said something wrong. All I've done for the past week is think over and over again about what I did wrong, and what I want to do better next time. But it was good, because I had that comfortable sex. He's my best friend, so it wasn't weird in the fact that he was some stranger, and I am sexually attracted to him, but even kissing him was weird at first. We'd only just kissed lightly on the lips before, and yes, he was my first kiss, but that's nothing compared to this. But he remembered things that I didn't think that he could remember, like the banana practice, and waited until I was comfortable, and was always making sure that I wasn't hurt. And it was good and it was pure, as pure as sex could be. And afterwards, with the Butterfly song by Weezer, when he cried, all I wanted to do was just lay there in his arms and have him cry, and we could just be comfortable and sleep together as an us instead of as separate entities. And last night, on my way to sleeping, I asked him why he cried, and he told me, and he remembered things that I didn't remember telling him, and it was good to know that he grasps more of what is going on with my life than he lets on. Like he says, he tries not to think about bad things, but things like what happened to me happen, and he needs to remember so that it can get better. And when I listened to the Butterfly song on the way home from Amy's tonight, I cried, and all I wanted was for him to hold me and tell me all of that stuff again, and let me just sleep with himand be comfortable and secure in knowing that right now, everything is ok.