Okay. I haven’t updated in over a month. Hopefully this is all cohesive and typo-free. Okay. I’m a bad person. I know. Here’s the deal. I went to Europe and had a fantastic time. I also made some realizations that will set me in the right direction for not living in the best place mentally next year. Manzanita (a.k.a. the dirty dorm @ ASU [a.k.a. my home this year]) is going to be an experience. I can say that already. I don’t like Myspace either. I do. But at the same time I don’t because it brings things that are so far personally and so non-establishable socially to a completely stated and cold terms. You can be online one day and think that someone cares about you like you care about them and the next thing you know they have boyfriend and you’re just little smudge on their comments and you don’t matter to them. I sound SO gay right now. Freaking internet. Before I get into this, let me preface this whole statement with my situation over the past few weeks. I became a completely despicable scoundrel to two girls that I adore… and I didn’t want that to happen. One of which I shouldn’t have lead on, but I did and the other, I had a chance with but now do no matter to. It’s a crappy feeling knowing that you aren’t valued in someone’s eyes any longer. I can’t say that I don’t feel that way sometimes. I guess that only thing I fell really bad about is not opening up a decent means of communication for anyone and caring only about one person and that person, of course, is myself. I’m always constantly focused on getting recognition for these mediocre things that I do. I feel horrible that I do these things to people. I make them feel so good about themselves and they deserve that more than they know, but I can’t follow through and be consistent with them and let them know how much I care. I was thinking about making this journal private for entries like this one so I could name names and get irrational, but I don’t think I will. I don’t really know who reads this, but I think this being out there on the internet will keep me accountable. I don’t know if the intent of this diary for myself when I first started it when I was 15 was accountability, but now it is. I’m starting college and I need to remember this junk when I’m 80 and all I have is old Myspace posts and internet diary entries. Weird to think about. Also to think about, or perhaps, more accurately, who I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, has been this girl from my church. I hate having so much drama in life right now. It’s nice that I can start again with college, but it’s not like those people that I’ve wronged aren’t going to be in my life anymore. I guess what I wanted happened and now I have all the chances that I wanted. I’m really not accurately expressing what I’m going through or feel like anymore. Hopefully all of the people read this have extreme deductive reasoning skills or maybe just E.S.P or something. I hate to be so awfully cavalier about my relationships with girls, but I feel like I can be online. I hope that makes sense. So… the girl I like. She is, in fact, perfection. This is also, a symptom. Part infatuation, part bitterness to past relationship. She’s everything that I thought this other girl I was involved with before Europe and before all this garbage started would be. She is what I hoped Dani (screw it, I’m using names) & I could have been if I hadn’t gone to Europe and come back with a different girl with a different mindset. I came back home and she didn’t care about me or about my well being. That seems to be an increasingly large problem in my life with girls especially. The worst part is that she’s so nice and so “perfect” that it could have just as easily worked out and been a good relationship. She just swims a lot and I just didn’t give her the time or affection she needed. It would’ve become a bigger problem next year anyway. I guess it’s better that I didn’t pursue her more because I would’ve held her back from either her swimming or her huge plans for college or from her eventual decision to leave Arizona altogether. I hate this about myself, but I do think way ahead relationally. I want security that it will last for at least some extended period of time. That’s why this other girl is perfect. She’s around, she’s just as involved as I am, she’s more passionate that I could hope for anyone, she doesn’t have a huge base of things that need to be done to keep her attention or her affection for that matter, she’s living close, she’s my age, she’s into a lot of the same things I’m into and she love Christ with a dedication and a consistency that I have yet to develop myself. That is one of the biggest turn-ons of all. I guess the thing that I was looking for in Dani is the same thing that I’m looking for in her, someone to love on the same level that I want to be loved and respected. I hate having someone fall of the planet like Dani did, but that’s my fault entirely. My only hope is that it won’t happen like that for this girl. I want her to know how much I care about her. I just keep writing don’t I? This is what happens when I don’t update for over a month. I get wordy and I start to lose focus here. I have a few more things, including a message to all of you going to into high school, a realization. Everyone you know in high school will let you down in one way or another. The key is to learn from their mistakes and be selfish in only the constant pursuit of making you the best person you can possibly be for their sake. My only regret in high school is not being enough of a role model when I should’ve been. I was too busy being a freaking class clown and a rock star. I guess I’m trying to make up for that now by being obsessed with ministry this summer. Junior High and the Element are seriously my life right now. And guess who is a part of both of those, you guessed it. Not only is she also a junior high counselor like myself, but she’s also been going to the Element and college small group for twice as long as I have. I wish I would’ve written all of this junk as it was happening because there would’ve been a much smoother transition from, “Dani is perfect, screw other girls” to “Mariana is perfect, Dani isn’t going to be there for you enough”. I really shouldn’t use names. Doesn’t matter. All that’s left is to re-iterate how much of a freaking jerk I am for getting yet another girl’s hopes up. I have like this girl Katie since, I don’t know when, probably about my junior year, and I guess I just never had the opportunity to really talk to her or let her know that. So, naturally, Europe rolls around and who’s there for me to vent to and get close to and talk to. Katie. The only problem (and probably the biggest problem) is that she’s moving to Rhode Island in a month. As much as we would like to kid each other into thinking we’re tough enough to handle our first year of college in an Arizona to Rhode Island talking relationship, I’m going to have to go ahead and call myself out on that one. It’s a shame to, how timing works out that is, because I know I came along at this like perfect time in her life where I just like changed her and made her a better person, but that’s going to be completely useless now that I’m staying here and she’s moving away. I don’t want her to think of me as a jerk, I don’t think she will, but it just upsets me to know that I have the power to do that to someone, to make them feel so good about themselves and just say, “Peace.”, you know, “Have a good life.” That is probably the worst thing about leaving high school. It’s, “We’ve known each other forever. I adore you. Goodbye.” That’s what college is for I guess. Okay. Now that I have successfully stated where my life is at, I’d like to go to bed in hopes of not waking up at 2:30pm like I did yesterday. It’s a good time; let me tell you, wasting the whole day. Here’s the abridged version. I’m a jerk and I make girls think I’m someone I’m not. You can go to bed now too, hooray. I would like to sort of wrap things up in this entry though by saying that I really thank God in the progress that He’s made in my life over the past few weeks and just sort of let me know what being a man is. Actually is too. Not just opening doors and being polite. What I need to be. I’m ready for college almost as much as I’m ready for life. Have a good one kids. ~David