Faces and Places

Real
Maybe this one will actually make it to being more than a draft.


Mom
Mom is sweet. Mom is sad. Mom is trying. Mom works hard.
Mom is irrational, but mom is loving. Mom is unfair sometimes, but at least she tries.
Basically, the way she smiles when she talks about grandpa, makes up for it. I don't get how she genuinely cares so much, about every single person she knows.
I like listening to her talk about her family, her friends, her coworkers, these random people she knows. I like it when she gets on a role, and goes on and on about all of these people. Because it's actually real.

Grandpa
Grandpa has sad eyes, he misses his wife. It makes me want to cry.
Grandpa loves his children and his grandkids, every single one of them.
Grandpa doesn't have a shield, blocking him from saying what he thinks, grandpa doesn't need one. More people shouldn't, I think. In the right context.
He has his own way of saying things, and it's always worth hearing.
He's so sweet. He's so loving. He's so... I don't know. Grandpa. He... he lives for his family. He really does.

this family.
I'm not going to say their names, but just this family I know.
The parents are broken up, I don't know why, I can't imagine how.
How can two people deteriorate so fast?
And the daughter... got hit by a car. She can barely walk, but she looks healthy. She looked a lot better than I expected her to when I talked to her. She's not like, sick. Not like "woe is me, I got hit by a car." She's happy and laughing and talking, and healing.
I'm sure they'll make it through ok, they're such wonderful, strong people.

Ali
Ali is so cool. Ali likes to make things, ali likes to create. Ali goes to anime cons, ali makes kimonos.
Ali is so real. Ali never isn't ali, like sometimes I'm not me.
Ali and I have a lot of fun. We dance around to the tetris song, and throw notes across the religion room.
I probably think more of her than she thinks of me. But that's ok, we have fun. Maybe one day she'll actually see me "freak out", like we were talking about.

Teresa
One thing she said to me stuck out, it was about ballet. One thing she said, back in September, about how she liked it, how it was pretty, graceful. (She's not a ballerina)
I remember thinking then... that that was the realest statement I'd heard from someone my age in a long time.
Maybe I'm exaggerating a little, maybe not everything said around me was fake.
But people say so much crap that they don't mean. They don't even realize it. Even when they're writing like this, "honestly."
It's fluff.
It's stupid, it's fake, it's unnecessary.
But we all do it, including me.
It's not that I first realized it was there or anything, but it actually hit me when she said that.
Basically, when she said anything, it was real. And she doesn't say the truth like it's a treasure. She says it normally. That's probably why I think it's so incredibly cool.

Rick
Rick, someone I haven't seen for a while. Since a retreat, at church, near the beginning of the school year.
We had these groups they called "families." He was our group leader, our group of 5.
The 6 of us, we got kind of close. Just at the retreat though.
But he... some things he said in our "discussions", or in the letter he wrote, or even in some of the KK's he sent, meant a lot to me. Because I knew he actually meant them.
He actually believed the things he said, he didn't just say them because he was our group leader.
In the group "discussions" we had, the group leaders shared too. I'm not going to say anything about what anyone said, we're not supposed to. I wouldn't anyways.
But... I hope he gets through everything. I'm sure he will.

Irene
my aunt, Irene. Irene lives in my most favorite place in the world.
Irene is a talker, but she's one of those special talkers. The kind that listens too. The kind that's more of a sharer than a talker.
Irene tells stories in the best ways, not because she's a great story-teller, but because she means what she's saying.
Because her eyes smile that whole time, they sparkle and crinkle at the edges.
Irene is incredible in how down-to-earth she is, how sure she is. How her sureness actually has something behind it instead of just ego.
Irene notices a lot, but she doesn't say that, which is what I like. You can tell not because she tells you, but because she shows you. Not on purpose, but because of how she acts, what she says.
Because she's real.


Just some thoughts. Just some things.
Last year I was so wrapped up in a tiny world. It's not that my friends aren't awesome and wonderful, because they are, but last year I made them practically my whole life.
This year... nothing is my whole life. This year I've really, actually seen a lot more people.
This year, I might still be wrapped up, but I'm not in a tiny little world.
Now... I don't know what to call it.
Not... open, exactly. Just, out.
And it's scary.

And that's all I have to say.