when i think about my brother. it’s not so sad anymore. a moment happens and i can’t think of a person that i would want to be there with me in that moment. A smile spreads across my face when i think about how much love i always had from him. there wasn’t anyone in the world who loved me more than austin did, aside from our parents. i wish i would have realized that when he was still here, when i was ready mom had me go through his trunk…most of the pictures were of the two of us together. he might have hated me when i was first brought home, but who doesn’t hate the kid that comes in and replaces you as the baby? but i grew on him. we fought. so much. but we only fought so much because we saw the others full potential. he was the only one to push my ass out the door to school, no i mean literally…push my ass.
i wish that everyone had a brother to deal with while they were growing up. i really do. sometimes, well most of the time you want to punch them. hard. but then you realize that you aren’t nearly as strong as they are so you would just end up hurting your hand. but let me tell you, i have the best memories because of that man. paintball when mom said no…i had welts for WEEKS. building massive snow forts and almost having the tunnel enclose on me. wearing a pink tutu when i was crying to cheer me up. always letting me win at baseball. i even loved you when you would unscrew the light bulb in the upstairs hallway and i would have to sprint to my room in the dark. the only voice i heard when i was on stage for miss paw paw was yours. graduation, you were up front waiting to take my picture. my first beer… obviously i called you and you laughed your ass off. sharing our t-shirt collection. i wish you knew how much on an influence you had on me as a kid. you always told me to learn from your mistakes because i was too smart to make them again. i did. i promise.
i know that when this happened, you had no idea how much you would leave behind you. everyone who loved you, lost a little bit of their heart that day. a lot of people loved you, still love you. know that. i know you’re happier, i know that. because i see signs all the time. i just wish i could have told you that, maybe things would be different. i love you, forever. no matter what anyone says, nothing will change the super hero image i have of you in my mind.
it doesn’t hurt so much anymore. i just wish you could have seen the love, before you made that last irreversible choice.
i love you, always. <3 roo
this one time. i laid in my bed with a really cute, sweet boy. who didn’t try anything or do anything which was actually really, really refreshing. what he did do though, was tell me how pretty, cute, adorable, beautiful and funny i am. tell me i’m funny and you’ve basically won me over. pathetic, i know. i’m really bad at taking compliments i’m realizing and it’s just not a good thing to be that bad at. i don’t think i’ll ever be good at taking them though, it’ll be what it’ll be. so this boy, is adorable and sweet and handsome…and has the best arms to just lay in. we’re going on a real date, i cannot remember the last time someone took me on a real date, even with tool bag we never went on a real date. it was more like hey, come over and let’s make mac and cheese date. not real. but this kid. damn him. he asked me out on a real date, then he told me he wasn’t going to tell me what we were going to do. if you know me, you KNOW i hate surprises, well no i love it when people do random things without telling me they’re going to do that random thing…but not when they make me wait four days to find out what i’m doing. not a fan. but anyway, the moral of this disgusting rant is. i do not remember the last time that someone gave me that amount of butterflies from holding my hand. i like it. a lot.
end girl feelings.
Dear 18 year old Sabrina.
You just finished your senior year of high school and you have no idea what you want to do with your life, well that’s a lie, you know exactly what you want to do but you have no idea how to get there. Which is alright, just enjoy the summer you have. It will be the last summer you spend at the place you thought deserved your heart forever, camp. But for now focus on how amazing your parents are for giving you everything they could to make you happy, including a graduation party that was the size of most weddings, remember that? you had a blow up water slide and abby went down it with her torn ACL and everyone almost had a heart attack…realize how lucky you are to have those people in your life. They’ll be the ones who stick with you through all of the time to come, trust me, you’ll need them more than you could ever imagine right now. Graduation parties galore, we bounced from party to party together, hung out in hammocks and went to the drive in, in my parents awesome van. I went off to camp for a week, made a stupid choice and that ultimately ended the relationship with the place you learned who you were, what you wanted and what you could do. it was hard to face in the beginning but after you realized you still had the friends you had since you were 13, things got a lot better. Summer started to close in on all of us, we said some of the hardest goodbyes we in our lives and all went along our ways.
Freshmen year, you started working back at David’s Bridal as a consultant and you hated it, but you stuck with it because that was the first place you worked and everyone was so proud of you for working your way up to where you were, don’t get me wrong, you were GREAT at selling wedding dresses but between your freshmen year of college it was too much, which is understandable. Around janurary you had a bride come in who basically opened the door to your future, she learned that you wanted to teach in an inner city school district and she held the key to open that door. She gave you her card to apply at a summer camp working with inner city kids, you put that idea in the back of your mind since just last summer your heart was broken. Classes came and went, you quit david’s and started working the front desk at a hotel making wayyy more money, you probably should save some of that cash but obviously, you didn’t. You ended up applying for that summer camp job and got it, which meant you had to work one day a week at the hotel over summer to keep your job for fall…that was the BIGGEST pain in the ass and you went to work hungover…a lot.
Summertime rolled around, you packed up everything and left for this new camp adventure. It was awkward at first because people knew each other and you were just sort of thrown into all of these awkward situations and had to find your footing. It ended up being perfect, you met people who would mean more to you than you ever thought someone you spent 3 months with could. it was the best choice you could have made. i pinky swear. but all that tequila you drank? noooot the best choice sabrina. you also got drunk a lot in cars, i mean they were parked but still, austin called you every night of your break to make sure you were alright and reminded you who you are, also called and talked you down from your mental breakdown. you have the best brothers ever. you also made some of the best friends ever from that summer. Let yourself get close to the people you live with in your cabin, emily and courtney will become your sanity, the three of you work PERFECTLY together…the kids adore all of you. Elizabeth will become one of your best friends, you two couldn’t be any more different but just trust me, she’s a great girl and will save you, many many times, even after summers done. Stephie, Kevin and Steph will get you drunk…and make your 19th birthday the best one yet…you might wake up with a hole in the wall and no one will remember why. oh also, you might wake up in a red roof inn. You guys are the classiest. Zach will warm up to you and become your brother at camp, he means well I promise. August comes around and we all go our seperate ways, you keep in touch with the ones you love, visits are made but then we all go back to school.
Sophomore year starts out well, you’re doing great in classes and you love all of them. Started work back up at the hotel and it’s great because you literally get paid to sit there and work on homework…you should have kept that job. Then. something you never thought could happen, happened. September 9, 2010 Austin, your brother, your best friend, your number one fan took his own life. Something like this you never saw coming. You’re life has just been turned upside down and you literally have no control over anything anymore, which everyone knows how much you hate that. You have no idea what to do, you try to be there for your mom and dad but that only makes it harder. Justin comes home and that’s when you lose it…you see him breakdown and you just die a little inside. The police are assholes, it’s alright though because there’s at least one that’s always on your side. You avoid the world, try to become bitter and turn cold. That’s not possible for you. Colleen came into your life more than ever, how, i have no idea. But you should be ungodly happy that she did because she made sure you were on the track to getting back to the happy sabrina, she succeeded with the help of all of the people who love you. Realize how many people love you. Chels did EVERYTHING in her power to make sure you were happy or at least normal, Tyler was always there with a hug or a hand to hold, abbs and jill, they never needed to say anything but we’re always ready to be there with open arms and movies. My megga, she was always ready to listen and never asked me questions, she understood without trying to. School started to suck, you couldn’t focus and you couldn’t be alone at work for all that time. You quit the hotel job and started working at KVCC thanks to mama bear. People, people at work started to restore your faith in humans. You started to realize that everyone had a story and yes, sometimes it was so hard to listen to other people’s stories but you did and you realized that you can help people. You realized how important it was for you to get out of Michigan, you start to look into schools, Wisconsin, Indiana University and University of nebraska. IU was too close to home, Wisconsin was too much, the more you looked into UNL the more you loved it. You and Megga went for a visit in April, you fell in love with it and made the choice that after camp you would be moving to Lincoln. Oh, you also had gastric bypass, no big deal. You couldn’t eat solids, you’ll hate apple sauce and protein shakes forever. It was a great choice.
Summer comes around you come back to camp as the Arts and Crafts coordinator. You’re back with some of your loves and you make new friends who are probably some of the funniest people. You room with elizabeth and you two are great together, caitlyn comes into the plan and you two are wayyyy to similar but its great. you find your twin, katie, she reminds you of all of the great things in life and quickly the four of you became inseparable. There was a boy, just have fun with him, don’t let yourself get attached to him, which is hard for you to do. He’ll hurt you and you’ll hurt him but it’ll all work out for the best. i promise. You have the best birthday, ever. 90’s themed, jean jackets, all out. You also got to spend the best birthday eve with your girls. enjoy the last few weeks you have in michigan.
you realize you’re leaving and it starts to sink in, which makes you panic a little. mom throws you the best surpise party ever and you realize how lucky you are to be surronded by people who love you.
Time to move to nebraska. you meet your roommates. honestly, you are perfect together. football season, you meet so many people and make so many friends before you find a job or even start classes, you go girl. Boys come into the picture. THEY ARE ALL DUMB. But you don’t think so at the time, silly girl. Emily and stephen quickly become your best friends and the three of you do pretty much everything together. You find 2 jobs, you were also offered about 8 of them. you made great choices as to which ones to take, classes are going well. life is all around well. You go home, it’s sort of weird but it’s alright. Head back to lincoln and you’re back to yourself. Thennn finals, then you come home for winter. You’ve been talking to a boy from home, dear god i wish i could smack you for that. You let yourself believe that he really does love you, and it works, you make some really stupid choices but hey, you eventually learn from all of it i promise. you’re life is a shit show for a while but you’ll learn.
Backkk to Lincoln for spring. You kind of have a whore phase but you snap yourself outta the pretty damn quick. Classes start, work starts you get back to you. Love the people you’ve met, they took you in with open arms. You’ll meet new people who make life better, love them as well. You had a fake…then the sweet bouncer took it away, that night God just wanted you to go home. Kam, who is probably you’re best friend here, gets you. love her. Karissa reminds you how fun life can be and you’ll do a lot of adventuring, i promise you it’s worth all of the cramming you did for classes.
Take the time to slow down and love life. A lot has happened in the past three years, it all made you who you are. Don’t forget that.
love-almost 21 year old sabrina.
ps. try to get just a LITTLE bit smarter with each life choice, oh and try to learn how to save money. PLEASE.
how do you capture the moments that truly marked you somehow? there really isn’t a way. i know that the people i’ve met this past year we’re meant to be with me during this time & hopefully for more times to come. you truly become a family when you don’t have anyone to take care of you, one friend takes on the mom role, the older sister role, the bitchy aunt role…and so on. you keep each other in check and you yell sometimes and overreact and then you spend time away from each other and you realize no one was wrong, and no one was right. the love that you create is too strong to break over something so petty. we love, we love a lot. i’ve gone through so much within these past months and without the people that have came into my life, i would be lost and back to the sabrina who had no idea who she was or what she wanted out of life, i’m lucky. so so so lucky. it’s almost time to say goodbye to the people who have became the loves of my life, sure for most it’s only for summer and we’ll be back together but for a few it’s goodbye until i see you again…i’m no good with goodbyes but i know how hard those will be, my heart aches thinking about those times. so for now, i’ll cling to the good and enjoy the last few weeks we have together. my lincoln family, is the best.
