The Summer of Changes.

Perhaps that title is cliche. But it is fitting for my mood so early in the morning, and the thoughts that have been running through my head since I came home from school.

It might have been noticed that I have not been online in a while. Certain circumstances in my life have prevented me from ever being on my computer and the fact that Torrie has taken hostage my desktop. The only time I ever feel inclined to go on is late at night before bed to check my e-mail and attempt a stab at writing for myself. It has been failing to calm me, or to even matter.

I guess the first big change was my hair. I cut off ten inches, while not seeming to be a big deal, it was for me. When I chopped off my hair during my senior year, I did for reasons other than wanting a change. I had recently been through a great deal and wanted to separate the two eras of my life from each other. What better way than to cut my hair, signifying the cut in myself from who I once was and who I was becoming?

In cutting my hair this summer, perhaps I was begging for another change, another transition from one version of Allie to another. And perhaps I am well on that new path, determining which way to set my course and my direction.

The second change was the death of my step-grandfather. Watching my grandmother break down at his funeral was something that really got me. My step-grandfather and I were not close, but death is a unifier, bringing people together in ways and in circumstance they normally wouldn't be. There is something in death that tells you to rethink the steps of your life, the path you are taking and where you are headed. It's a big shove from God, telling you to wake up and realize where you are headed.

Then my dog collapsed for a second time and had her surgery. When we found out it was cancer, it was a blow. How can my nine year old dog be sick? But the vet said only 3-6 more months. And every day when i see her, my heart breaks to know that it could be the last time she looks at me with her eyes without pain, or its the last time she'll remember me. Does that make sense? Losing my dog will be losing a part of myself. We have a connection, her being born on the day I hit my head. She's my baby.

And of course there is my grandmother and her cancer. She too has a limit on her life, much like the limit my dog is now faced with. And every day i wonder how bad it will be to have my grandmother leave to go find her place with my grandfather. And I almost wonder if it would be better, to escape from the pain. But I don't want her to give up fighting, or struggling for the sunlight and the nights when the moon is full.

And beyond the external factors weighing so heavily on my shoulders this night, there is also the personal, the things within myself that I am purposely changing because I don't want to be associated with that image any longer. I want to separate the Allies from each other. I want to be different. I want to view myself as different.

I wonder if that is a seflish wish, a selfish want to be so entirely different from the person everyone knows me as. But if I am not happy with myself, how can I expect to gain any affections or friendships from anyone else? How can I expect anyone else to see me in a positive light when I see myself so negatively? I can't. I can't hold people to hold expectations of me, when i can't hold them myself. So, changing it is, for the better, I assure you.

I even feel like my writing is different. Is it? I think it is. It sounds cold and harsh, like I am not here to press the keys, but instead am trying to dictate a formal letter...

Anyways. Perhaps this entry was meaningless to anyone who even cared to read it. But it meant something to me, a signifier or everything that has been and that has yet to come my way this summer. And perhaps I sound cold and harsh and not like myself, but I am in a place where I do not know myself. Or what I stand for. Or where I want to be any longer.