Last night, a girl in my grade committed suicide. This is the second teen suicide in our city this year. The last one was two weeks ago, at the other high school.

Last time, it didn't affect me. She was just a girl. From the other side of the city. One I'd neither seen nor heard of beforehand. It was almost as if she'd been from the next town, the next state, somewhere entirely different.

This morning, I came into PE class to see three people crying. I thought it was just one of those days, and I was right - except these days come rarely and even so, they come too often. Our teacher read the announcement to us. We observed a moment of silence. But I didn't seem affected.

All day, various people were sad. The fall musical, which was supposed to be tonight, tomorrow, and Saturday night, was postponed because it includes suicide. All day, I saw people crying and hugging and I offered consolation. But it felt oddly distant. I didn't feel sad - well, I did. But I felt more of a chilly surprise.

I had known her in the way you know people you've been with for a few years, but moreover those whose friend groups have linked with yours at times. I had passed her in the hallways, I had seen her pictures on Facebook, I had talked to her sister a few times. I might have known her. But no longer.

It's only now, a while later, that it's sinking in. She's dead. She's gone. She took her own life. I will never see her again - not in the hallways, not at the lunch table, not with my friends. She cannot see how much love pours out towards her now, how much people miss her and grieve for her, how much people are aching for her.

I don't know why. It seems that no one does. But I don't think, even if I did know, that I'd understand completely.

And I remember now what it was that prevented me from doing the same thing, a few years ago. It was the thought of hurting others so deeply. It hurt me to see their pain, and I suppose that my empathy saved me. I only wish that this girl had had something like that - something that pulled her back.

I was not her close friend. I was not her family. I didn't know her well and perhaps I don't have so much of a right to be so sad. But here's the thing. I was talking to a friend of mine and asked if she was okay, and she said: "I'll be fine. It's just she's the first person I knew who died."

I was not her close friend. I was not her family. But I knew her, and I am sad. For a life that could have been lived.

Memories, Stories, Lives, and Years

Today I woke up tired (aka after a sleepover). I went to visit the Museum of Fine Arts with my friend and every time I heard the date, I knew there was something I should be remembering.

And when I came home, I realized.

A year ago today, I came back to America from Israel.

That's it, now it's been more than a year, more distance between me and that past. I don't know why the concept of the year is so significant to me in this respect. I don't know.

Part of me is a little bit sad. Part of me is just confused. It's odd - I gave my friend a notebook of mine to read, a notebook that included a chronology of the last months in Israel, and I haven't read it in a while, and I don't remember much from that part. Time goes by and I don't remember.

But looking back, perhaps Israel's changes were just as great in magnitude as the changes I went through this past year. A lot happened. I just - yeah. It's been a really weirdly crazy and wonderful year.

Really, I suppose I shouldn't try to attach additional meaning to certain parts of my life, because all of it is important. And sometimes I wonder - what if the events I don't remember too well affected me more than the times that are replayed in my mind?

A life, in my not-so-long experience, is like matter. Comprised of tiny bits that can be dissected into even smaller and smaller ones - and mostly empty space. The space between the molecules, the atoms, the hadrons, the quarks. And that space is important. It's what makes the matter hold its shape, what defines it. Because really, matter is just an exception to the vacuum (it goes the other way too - the vacuum is an exception to matter). A life is not just the memories. A life is all the spaces in between too. All the short, sweet moments saved deep inside a mind and all the stories.

We are little bits of improbability, floating in space, wanting understanding. I am not one to say what is or isn't in the spaces between. Perhaps it's things I don't believe in. I don't know. But that's what I try to find out.

Sad

I am feeling sad now, and I don't know why. I had a good day. I am okay, honestly I am. But it is one of those times when the sadness tastes metallic in my mouth and I feel like I'm floating in the worst possible way.

It's a time when I look on the world and I am so worried that other people are not happy. I am so worried that there is something I should be doing for them that I am not. I am so, so worried that someone else has the metal-taste and the floating and that they need someone to talk to, someone to make them feel better.

I'm okay, it's just that the world overwhelms me sometimes.

I'm scared. I don't know what I'm scared of and I don't know why I'm scared and I shouldn't be stressed at all.

But I'm still okay.

I saw a picture today that said something about "Feeling is from the brain. Leave the heart alone - it just pumps blood." And that is true. But where do you feel it? Your heart. Your chest. You don't get headaches when you're sad, or at least, not as much. You feel your chest.

Read that as you may. I hope your mouth tastes sweet and that you feel firmly rooted to the ground.

On Writing, or lack thereof

There is a certain silent sadness to the lack of writing.

Now, don't get me wrong. There was a lot of writing in my life this year. Essays, blog posts, journal entries - a lot of nonfiction.

But there is a comfort to fiction that cannot be achieved with such safe material.

Fiction is dangerous. It feels terrifying because creating is terrifying. It is a jump into the unknown, where there may be a safety net or a concrete sidewalk in the thick darkness. If it doesn't work, it hurts. But that analogy is a poor one, since writing fiction will certainly not kill you.

Fiction requires a certain freedom to the mind, a lack of preoccupation. My brain, when fuzzy with obligation, does not want to write fiction. In that case, my brain just wants to sleep. Or look at adorable cat gifs. Or just stare at the ceiling for a while.

Suddenly, I'm out of school and I can write again. This year, I began to doubt whether or not I was actually a writer. But I suppose, in a way, that being a writer is not a question of writing every single day on schedule. Being a writer is a matter of coming back to it. Of needing to come back to it. Of having the ideas curl into smoky rings of vapor until they condense into liquid and can no longer be contained. That is writing. It is a difficult love, but a fruitful one.

This July I venture into Camp NaNoWriMo, land of 1613 words each day and insanity. I'm excited and terrified. And hopefully, in August, I'll have a novel to edit.

The silent sadness is over, if only temporarily.

BUA

I just went to visit BUA. And right now I am so confused.

Not only did about half the students there tell me I should have applied, two of the teachers did, and the rest seemed to like me fairly well.

And you know what else? I really want to apply. But I also don't. But I do, but I don't.

I don't because I love my friends and community and speech team. I do want to go because, well, because it's BUA.

But the thing is, they usually admit only people coming for freshman and sophomore year. And I missed that chance. And I'm worried now that I missed my chance at everything else, because I don't have time to do all the things I want to do. I live for knowing, for being among the educated, for having a reason to be superior. Why did I not realize back in the fall that this was my best chance?

Don't get me wrong - if nothing else, I'm glad I went and saw the place. It's going to give me motivation in my independent studies.

But I am so, so confused. And I'm worried that I've missed my chance at everything I've wanted, and that I'll never get one like this again.

Talktalktalk

There are people who I try desperately to talk to and keep contact with. For most of them, it's because I am terrified of losing that friendship or connection. I'm scared that if I don't tell them what's going on in my life, our friendship will disappear.

Sometimes it's fine and they respond to me. But other times I just feel like I'm bothering them, and they would rather that I stay away.

Then of course I'm ashamed and I start slapping myself across the face. Sometimes I really feel like I need help.

Closing Time once more

Tomorrow we are returning to America after being here for ten days. Dang, ten days is short. Too short.

I didn't realize how much I missed this place until I got here. I feel free. I feel that I'm doing enough. It's nice to feel adequate again.

Today I bade goodbye to many of my friends and much of my family. (A fuller description may follow.) It's very strange. Honestly, I really don't want to go back. America is work and the weight of obligation and constant insanity in comparison with here. I'm going to miss it so much.

But if there's one thing I've learned, it's that you can't dwell on where you aren't. For the next few hours I'm here, and then I'll be somewhere else, and that's that. No point aching when there's nothing to be done.

So now that I've been sufficiently restored, and now that I've gotten my crazy back, I think going back is gonna be okay. I'll learn, I'll work, and then I'll come here and feel better. I suppose this will be my natural cycle from now on. And I guess that's okay.

Poems and Thoughts of Israel

It's nearing one a.m. and I just spent the past hour and a half finishing a book of Hebrew poetry.

I don't know.

I've been wanting to finish it for a while, and now I need to reread it because I'm so tired that I'm not sure what stuck and what didn't.

But what did stick was beautiful. I really like this book, almost as much as Hazel loves An Imperial Affliction.

But I suddenly thought about going to visit Israel - this Wednesday as it happens - and I'm terrified as hell, honestly. How different will it feel? Will my happiness fade again? Where will I be after going back to that place?

I've forgotten so much, honestly I have. I had forgotten, until today, how the streets in Tel Aviv connect and how it felt to be there and being away from my friends and everything. It hurt, and I think I forgot that a little. Suddenly I remember all these things from the evening I got this book of poetry signed and how good I felt that night, and being close to my family, and having Hebrew all around me.

I'm kind of alarmed at how much this trip crept up on me. It was always kind of in the near future and all but never really this close. In seventy-two hours I'll already be there or close at least. It's scaring me. Deja vu to this time last year, before I changed.

But how much did I stay the same?

I don't know right now. I don't know anything right now.

Confused, etc.

This is an angsty post. You have been warned.

I'm still thinking a lot about Israel. Especially today.

I have this thing where music makes me feel different things, not necessarily because of the way it is, but more because of when I first heard it or when I was listening to it a lot.

So there are some songs that are Israel Songs. Songs that I would listen to and would make me feel all of the feels.

And some of those songs are ones that I haven't heard in a very long while.

So I had Spotify on and was listening to one of them and BAM. The feels. I felt like I had in Israel, and suddenly I realize that I just don't feel like that anymore, and I remembered.

How much I missed my friends. How confusing it was to have two homes. How different my outlook was, how I felt about different people back then. How I felt about myself.

And I'm still thinking about it, and I'm still sad.

And also - I missed my friends here so much. How is it that after nearly six months here, I don't miss Israel so much? Was it all really that fleeting? Were my friendships too hastily built to last?

And now I miss them. And I miss the apartment. And school.

Something about my geography teacher in Israel came up during lunch. And I realized - I had never really told my friends here that much about my actual life in Israel. I talked about feelings, about homework, about general things - a bit about a few classes. But there wasn't much.

And now I remember everything.

How did I survive for so long without my friends? How am I surviving now, without my friends in Israel?

How?

Nostalgia and some realizations

I'm in one of those moods when you really want to cry but you can't so you can't get it out and you're stuck in this sort of pool of sadness, some of it pointless. Often it's nostalgia. It is now.

See, today I thought about Israel. I miss it a lot. Sometimes it just doesn't feel like that was life at all, just a story that I can tell, one that most people are really interested in.

I miss it, I miss my family, I miss my friends, I miss our tiny apartment and my strip of blue wall and the  public transportation and school. Six months can be so long but so short.

And my girlfriend is at another school now and suddenly I can see how it might have been for my friends back here. Oh, it must have been hard. I miss her so much at school and every so often she'll come up in conversation and we'll ask why she isn't here, and we'll remember that she went to a different high school and none of us can really talk to her because she's so busy.

I just hope that we won't stop at least attempting to see each other. I want to have fun at school and I want her to have fun at her school but I wish we could talk.

I wish a lot of things.

Change

Right, so.

I was reading some of my old blog posts and I can just feel how much I've changed. Yeah, I knew it would happen back then, but it's kind of wonderful to see now.

Six months ago a change like this might have made me sad. But today? Oh, no. I'm at the top of the world and yet it can only go up from here.

Because I'm not depressed and I learned to cartwheel and I had recess and I started liking the theater and people tell me I look like I'm from Tel Aviv and I know how to get around here and I have amazing new friends and they're very very sad I'm leaving and I started liking myself and I let myself branch out and I finished three notebooks and I learned to do a handstand and I can cope with a high school and I am crazy and I'm fine with the messed-up world and I have CHANGED within.

This doesn't mean I might not be crying when I get back, no it doesn't. I can still be sad. But I'm happy I had this opportunity. I am very, very glad.

"I'm on a roller coaster that only goes up, my friend."

~ Augustus Waters

I love the world.

Closing Time

Today was the last day of school.

It wasn't that much really, we came to school and our teacher spoke and stuff, embarrassing me and the other girl who's leaving in my class by saying how lovely we were. I got a cork board thing with a bunch of notes from my friends, which I thought was really sweet.

Then she handed out report cards - unfortunately for me, in reverse alphabetical order - and while I waited for mine, I went about saying a few goodbyes. One of my friends who are boys permitted me to hug him in that time, which he hasn't let me do when I tried. I took photos of unsuspecting people and ran up and down the stairs.

I got my report card and was quite happy with it, except for my grade in history, which had a mistake in it and lowered my average by a lot, so I went around for about two hours to find my teacher.

Then I finally found her and just about sorted things out.

After my friends had gotten their grades too, we went downstairs to the kiosk and bought a coke and mentos, then went out to the parking lot. I got my camera out and we exploded the coke (except not really, because it was too small) then jumped on the remains. A second friend who is a boy permitted me to hug him before he left.

Then I went home, put my big cork board down, and went to meet my friend at the bus stop, where we caught a bus to Dizengoff Center. I took her to a great bakery and we bought a baguette, took it back to the Center, ate it, and proceeded to buy shakes at re:bar (mine was mango, pineapple, passion fruit sorbet, and yogurt). We went to "Everything for a Dollar," which does not have everything for a dollar, and I bought a minimini notebook. Then we met up with the rest of our buddies, who were buying movie tickets, and I hugged all of them, including a third friend who is a boy. I had to go home because of my ballet open house.

I don't know what to say about it. It's been a kind of amazing day, and I'm feeling happysad, but kind of more sad. I don't know. This song kind of defines it (not in the sense that I'm in love or anything). I've had it on repeat for the last ten minutes.

I need some quotes. Goodbye.

(Doctor Who title reference again!)

Bye Bye Ponds

(If you know which Doctor Who episode the title is kind of from, you are awesome. If you don't, you are awesome too.)

Okay, I'm posting this here because I think my Facebook friends will kill me if they see another Doctor Who-related status. Yeah, I'm pretty bad with that.

Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill have wrapped up filming Doctor Who. I'm sad. Ish. But I don't think they're finished until we get to see them go. So HA, Ponds, you're not done yet. I just hope neither Amy nor Rory dies...which currently seems very plausible.

(Sorry to any non-Whovians. I had to.)

Crazy Home Thoughts

Yesterday I was watching Wizard Rock, a song that I really do love. It's about, well, Wizard Rock, which is a music genre about Harry Potter. It's a good song anyway, but it's about Harry Potter so...it's awesome. It's also about depression a bit, which, well, is okay.

But what I was going to say is that listening to this song made me really sad, not just because Potter is "over" but also because my friend would always play it on her iPhone and we would sing it. We used it to annoy our cabin mates on a school trip - they ended up shooing me onto the porch when we had to do written work because I was the louder one of us.

And that made me wonder: how will it be when I get home? Will I look at Doctor Who and Hunger Games and be really sad because it reminds me of the days here? I don't know, but I can't help thinking that after this I won't have a home. It's scary, not knowing where you belong or if you should be here at all.