Former Best Friend

Sunday, October 4, 2015

Marissa,

You've been on my mind lately. a lot.
You and i were attached at the hip for nearly six years. We grew up together. You were practically my sister. Then one day we bumped into each other at a high school theatre production and all we saw were strangers with the same faces as the girls we used to love.

I've been thinking about that interaction lately.
It was forced.
It was fake.
I treated you exactly the same as i would have if you were a person from high school who i had in that one class that one year. You treated me like that, too.
It was obvious that we both wanted the past.
We both wanted to hug and act like nothing had happened, but our jokes were tired. Our lives were so far apart from each other that we didn't know what to say. I couldn't even think of a question to ask you, but i literally knew nothing about you anymore.

I hated it.


But you know what? I'd seen you across the room several times that night. I purposefully avoided you at first, thinking it would be too awkward. Thinking you would brush past me or something. So i left. I walked completely out of the building with Jenae, got in my car, backed out, started driving away. I said quietly, "Marissa was there." Jenae said, "I Know! Did you get to talk to her?" "No."
and then i stopped the car. I froze for a second, staring at the dashboard. Then i pulled into the nearest paring spot, literally jumped out the car and ran back into the building through the drama room and found you in the crowd. Then i marched my way over to you, propelled by adrenaline, and hovered around your group of friends until their was a break in conversation. I tapped on your shoulder to say hi to you.

I wanted you to be surprised, and i wanted it to feel good, and i wanted to tell you everything in my heart, and i was so ready to apologize and sit with you and explain everything and beg forgiveness,


but that weird exchange happened instead. A too-polite sounding voice came out of my genuine-intentions mouth and ruined everything.


we walked away from each other with our separate groups of friends and i drove home in silence.






You know, when your niece Gemma was born i cried because i was so happy for you. I knew what that would mean for your family after everything you've been through together, and i was excited that you would get to feel that new kind of exciting love for a child.
You got to see the Jonas Brothers in concert before they broke up and i giggled like an idiot when i saw your pictures, because i knew you were getting to do something you'd wished for since middle school.
I even watched Michael's creepy cult movie even though i don't do scary/dark stuff, because you were in it and i knew it must have been important to you and that you were proud of it. I thought you were incredible. It made me think of all the times we performed together. You're a passionate actress, and loved feeding off your energy on stage. I wish we would have done the Hellen Keller scene together for Amador senior year.

You sent me a waffle maker as a wedding gift and i cried, which i know sounds weird, but it just let me know that you didn't hate me. It also whisked me back to my living room, after sophomore year of high school when we made waffles and eggs and breakfast things and watched Camp Rock 2 and ripped up my stuffed monkey from an ex-boyfriend like we'd done for you with an old crush the previous summer. I can still picture what we were wearing, and our reactions to the movie, and that by the time you all went home, it was getting hot outside.
Karl asked me who the waffle maker was from and i said, "Dobchinsky Marissa" and he smiled. He's heard so much about you. I wish you could meet him. I wish he could meet you. He's so good, Marissa. He's more than i ever dared to wish for. All those times we talked about things we wanted in a marriage and a home and a husband? He is all of those things. He makes me so happy.


But in all of that happiness, i still feel a hole when i see your name.


I regret very few things about my life, because i feel like even my bad choices helped me see the way i should have been living, and they propelled me to change.

But i regret leaving you.

I regret leaving you behind without marching to your door and spilling my heart on your sidewalk. I regret not making more of an effort to show you that i meant my apologies. I regret going to see "Once" In San Francisco with you literally RIGHT behind me on the bus and not saying a single thing to you because i was embarrassed.

I feel uncomfortable around some of your friends because i never knew them very well, and i don't think they like me. Even beyond that i feel uncomfortable around them because i know they love you, and they know who you are know.

I don't know you now.
But that shouldn't have stopped me from talking to you.

I was talking to Karl about you last night as i was falling asleep.
"we were like twins, and then i blinked and we were complete strangers." i said softly.
"How did it get like that, if you were so close?" He mumbled sleepily
"I don't know. After Disneyland? Time just, stretched us, i guess."


and then i fell asleep, and dreamed about us on the first day of school, rushing to classes and dancing in the car on the way home. Doing the same thing over again the next day and the next day and the next.

I said, "I don't know" when he asked me what happened, but i do know.








Senior year, we were as close as ever. inseparable isn't a word i use lightly. We were everywhere together. When I wasn't with you, people asked me where you were, assuming we should be ride beside each other. I loved that. I loved that people associated you with me and me with you. We were a package deal. People knew us as "Marissa and Melissa".


Toward the end of the year, as the musical was ending, we both started dating boys who were different than the kind we usually went for. Honestly, i don't ACTUALLY know anything about your relationship. I judged it, i made assumptions, and i disapproved because i thought it came with people, if that makes sense. Like you linking with that boy linked you with an entire group of people who i knew didn't like me, and i didn't like them. You choosing that boy felt like you were choosing all of those other people, too. So i felt like you were choosing to be 'anti-melissa' as well.

I did the exact same thing.

I dated a boy who was absolutely toxic for me. Zero good things came out of that relationship, and it poisoned a lot of my other relationships that were actually good, because those people tried to show me what i was doing and i didn't want to believe them, so i cut them off.
The stupidest thing was, The boy I was dating was previously in the group of people who i didn't like, and they didn't like me! I had aligned myself with a category of people i wanted to be nothing like. The same group of people attached to your boyfriend were the people attached to mine. Hypocritically I blamed your relationship for our falling out.

In all actuality i think was both.

Your relationship and mine pushed each other away. Not even because of the actual boyfriends, but because of the lifestyles and the associations.


You were one of those kind people who were just trying to convince me that i wasn't doing what was best for my long-term life. I ignored you. I cut you off. I choked out our relationship bit by bit that last month of school, and when we graduated it was nearly unconscious.


When i broke up with my boyfriend, you were still with yours, and the two boys had very close ties. Too close for my comfort. In my mind, you were now part of that group of people who didn't like me, the group of people who were attached to the boy you dated.

We still saw each other, but mostly because of other people inviting us to the same events. I felt disconnected from you, but i tried not to let it show. I remember our mutually good friend Oscar finally catching a glimpse of it and being shocked, because we'd always been like two peas in a pod.



We stayed friends through the summer and fall, though never fully regaining what we had until Christmas when we went to Disneyland. I was uncomfortable that trip because i'd gained 30 pounds my first semester of college and i felt ugly and fat.
The relationships on that trip, though were perfectly normal. We even shared a bed, haha. It reminded us of the night we'd stayed up until who knows when in the morning plastering Jonas Brothers posters to every available inch of space on your walls and ceiling, and then collapsed exhausted onto your bed and fell asleep next to each other. In the morning your dad came in to wake us up and asked, "you slept int he same bed??" with a weird look on his face. Your mom rolled her eyes and we never let it go. We genuinely laughed at that broken record story for years.



We saw each other a few more times, but then my family life got crazy really quickly and i was very busy with a sister who was very ill pregnant and her 3 young children. and i was working and had church obligations. Most night i was just too burnt out to do anything. I hardly had time for myself, i didn't even think about friends.

Right before i left for school again the spring of 2013, you sent me a message on Facebook. You had assumed some things of me that i thought were unfair, but you also pointed out some truths that were hard for me to hear.

I'd forgotten about you.

but it's not because i didn't love you or want to spend time with you, i had forgotten about everyone. My friends from high school seemed like they were in a completely different world, because i spent all day everyday helping my sister raise her children. Life outside of their schedule was recreation, and i just genuinely didn't have time for that.


My cousin and i were working in a friend's almond orchard one day that summer, and she told me that in Amador, a girl in the room had made a derogatory comment about me, and that you had defended me. "Don't judge her!" you'd said. "You don't know her".
It wasn't until then that i'd realized that it was completely my fault that we stopped being friends. You have always been loyal to me, always supported me, always been there, trying.

I never wanted to make you feel excluded. I never intended to stop talking to you. I had no idea you were feeling alienated. I assumed that you were fine, that we were fine, and that when we saw each other again we'd jump right back on track just like at the beginning of every school year after not seeing each other all summer.

I was wrong. I was so wrong, that it was painful to realize. I was so wrong, that i couldn't make it right again. I was so wrong, i ruined our relationship.

It was no longer about boys, it was no longer about other friends or groups of supposed people who i was judging.

It was about me and you.

It was about you feeling neglected, and me not noticing. It was about me not valuing our friendship that i claimed to cherish, when you were still fighting for it.
You'd been fighting for so long, that you were tired. So you took a break, and realized that i wasn't even trying.





I'd hung us out to dry, and not returned for us until the sun had bleached all the color out of us. We were empty.



We were over.







I saw you a couple time after that, including the exchange i described at the beginning of this. I'd invited you over to make pizza, but never followed through, and then it was time for me to go back to school again. I'd inadvertently shown you, again, that i didn't actually care abut you as much as i said i did.
You told me you felt like one of those people who i acted nice to but didn't actually like.

I denied that fiercely,
but,
you were right.
I had treated you that way.







I know that we will never have what we once did, but i wish i could let time and space be the only reason we fell apart.
I hate that it was my fault.
I hate that i didn't try harder.



I just want you to know that i never thought of you in any other regard than that of my best. friend. I never doubted your regard for me, and i never talked poorly about you behind your back. There would have been nothing poor to say. You are incredible, and have always been incredible. I never wanted you out of my life. I never intentionally pushed you out, but when your grip loosened, i didn't pull you back and i'm sorry.

If i had the money i would literally be on a plane right now, hoping to tell you all of this in person.
I wish i could see you again.
I wish we could laugh again.
I wish we could be friends again.


I never, even in my worst nightmares, thought i would be living a life without you in it. Even in my nightmares, you were with me.



We're just both so different now, we can never go back to the way it was.



I just wonder if we can start over?

like literally, just start completely clean.
I'm writing you a letter. Your home address is the only one i have for you, and the only means of communication i have for you that i know would get through to you. I don't have your number, I've tried messaging you on facebook, i feel insincere on instagram, so i'm writing all this out and mailing it to you in the post.





Marissa, can we start over?
I don't want you to be just a face in my photo albums. When my husband, and my children flip through photos of us, i want them to smile because they know who you are.

I don't know if it could ever be that way.
I don't know if i've permanently ruined us.
I know i've ruined the old us, the children us, the two girls who grew up hand in hand, but i hope the bridge isn't completely burnt.


You were a part of me that i was proud of, and i don't want to forever loose you.




Can we start over?





Hello?
My name is Melissa Michiale Horlacher.
I am 21.
I am married.
I live in Utah.
I am working part time and taking 3 online classes, the completion of which will mark my graduation from BYU-Idaho.
My hair is short now. above the shoulders.

If you don't hate me, please write back. Or call me, my number is still the same as it was in 2008. I'll put it in the hand-written letter, but not here on the internet.

I don't know which you'll see first.
either way, Know that i loved us, and a part of my heart still loves a part of yours, but it would love to love the whole thing again.

I don't necessarily deserve a second chance from you, but i'm asking for one.


Yours truly,
Melissa Michiale.

______________________________________

March

It's a good life, guys. 

This semester has rushed by in a whir of Preschool and Family Home Evening activities. and food. 

i remember all the food, haha. 

and SNAP, just like that, it's all over and i'm cramming all my last assignments into a 2 hour period tonight before i go to bed. smart. 

I heard that every REM cycle you get in before midnight actually counts as double, so maybe i'll just go to bed right this minute and then wake up at 5AM. 

lol, not. 

Here's some snapshots of my life in March.

also known as a bunch of times that i tried to document the tender little mercies in my life:

I got a new phone (FINALLY. no more 2006 Nokias. holla.) and Sophia took full advantage of the front facing camera. leaving me about a dozen selfies a day that look like some variation of this:

Speaking of Sophia, she's an angel. She works early morning janitorial, and some days she goes out to eat with her co-workers afterward. One morning i woke up to a note telling me that there were donuts for me on the table. and another morning, i literally woke up to the smell of heaven. 

A McGriddle at the foot of my bed. 

one day i was doing homework in the lounge and swiped a pen from on top of the mailboxes. when i was cleaning up my things, i tossed the pen back at the mail boxes, in some blind attempt to walk 3 less steps. 

and it made it. and then i was still too lazy to walk over there, even to take a less grainy picture. 

but do you see it? 

beauty.

one night for FHE we made Eiffel Towers out of Play-Doh. this was my groups. taha. i know, ugly. but it was leaning and we had a time crunch. i think it's cute. 

then we had crepes, and the boys had decorated their apartment with stringed lights, and were playing french music. cuties. 

Rexburg sunsets will always be my favorite. 

Sophia is taking a class where she got to teach a part of preschool for one day, and she got to teach in my lab!! I was so happy! It was fun to have her with me. she was so cute and engaging with the children. 

Stephanie took my clothes out of the dryer, brought them home, and folded them for me one day. 

just because she loves me. 

my bangs naturally turn into Ariel's when they air dry after the shower:

I GOT FLOWERS!

Just kidding. i bought them for a preschool science activity. 

I have an FHE friend named Hunter who literally despiiiises my Crocs. 

SO much so that he actually bought me a seperate pair of shoes to wear when i'm around him, because he hates seeing my crocs that much.

so now i have a second pair of shoes. 

cool. 

and they're purple. 

cooler. 

LOGAN CAME TO VISIT!!!

it was so weird/fun/normal to have her here again. i love that girl. 

i still think we look alike. 

she was a fun roommate last semester. 

Stephanie doesn't. eat. 

not like she can't. 

not like she doesn't want to. 

she just literally doesn't think about it, because she does so many other things. 

i don't understand how that can work, considering i have to eat like every hour to stay sane, but she just genuinely forgets to feed herself. 

So I feed her probably 3 times a week, and Sophia 2 times a week, and on the other 2 days, she eats chips and salsa and an apple and thinks she's nutritionally sound. 

shake my head. 

one night, she was doing like 10 homework assignments at once, and Sophia literally spoon feed her pasta as she worked, because Stephanie genuinely didn't have the time to make and eat dinner. 

I love how much light pours in from the window in my room. i always keep the blinds open during the day. it absolutely fills the room and hallway with pure white morning light, and i love it. 

ARARA!

"I CANNOT KEEP UP WITH YOUR BLOG!"
"Melissa,seriously, you posting 3 times a week is killin' me, smalls. I can't keep up!"
"alright i love you, but STOP POSTING EVERY DAY."

hahahahahahahahahahahaha

sorry, but i'm not sorry. and i will probably keep posting 3 times a week. i will post whenever a post pops in my lil' mind.

weekend thoughts:

- I am not good at being a girl. Mostly cause i cannot stand malls.
- the DI is WHERE IT IS AT. (BTdubbs, it's the 75th anniversary of Deseret Industries, holla!)
- I like movies. lots. i do not like paying for movies. EVERYBODY PAY FOR ME, K?
- McDonalds. yes. (plain McDouble, medium fries and a water cup. ev. ery. time.)
- mah little homie Trey got his mission call and i cried. because i was happy but also because we're growing up and it's reeeeeeally weird to me.
- making cakes and brownies for boys on their birthday is fun, but not when you spend an hour mixing icing to be the perfect colors and frosting the cake to look like camoflouge, only to have the tinfoil RUIN the design. perrrrrfect.
- ice cream sandwiches and brownies from your roommates just cause they love you is the best thing ever. especially the ice cream part
- i hate math i hate math i hate math i hate math i hate math i hate math
- i join my friend Kim in the statement, "Everyone is getting married. I'm over here wondering when it's my turn. The life of a single mormon. Girl or Boy I think we feel the same way....Where are you lover?"
- saying 'blue maquaw' in Portuguese has become my favorite new exclamation. ARARA!
- meetings. they'll be the death of me.
- Dear Mom i went to Idaho Falls and didn't get my eyes checked, lol.
- "With Humble Heart" is a good Hymn (#171)
- "Vocal Point" = I feel good
- There is a girl Karli Sue in my complex and i just love her. she's one of those really sweet girls who you just can't help but smile at. she's adorable and she makes me feel happy and i literally want to be just like her.
- when you come into my house uninvited and stay for FIVE HOURS, excuse me when i fall asleep on the couch while you're gossiping about things that are not true. get out.
- old friends and laughing > sweep swap/ward prayer, sorry roommates.
- talking with Mallorie in the car for 2+ hours about eeeeeverything on our minds is the BEST thing ever. She's my best friend. i love her x 1000.
- Tyson chicken nuggets are always the answer
- when you spend all Saturday baking, and then you fall asleep Sunday evening, and then spend a few hours in a car talking about life, you'll be happy, but you'll also have to stay up real late doing homework.

also, my inspiration today comes from this:
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1995/10/perfection-pending?lang=eng

I bet you 5 dollars that Russell M Nelson is the Prophet in 15 years.

"Our Adoration of Jesus is best expressed by our emulation of Jesus" - Russel M Nelson October
1995

Also, One day i want a print of Caravaggio's "The Calling of Saint Matthew" on the wall, in my house, for everyone who visits to see. So everyone will ask me about it and i can tell them, 'Matthew listed his call with the miracles of Christ, because to him, it was a miracle that he followed. a miracle that he was called at all, but think of all the incredible things that Matthew was able to do with apostles because he had the faith to leave his tax collector's station and follow Jesus!' and then I'll tell them how i hope my conversion is miraculous like Matthew's, and how i hope that i can follow Christ and make a difference.

and they'll raise their eyebrows and feign interest. but i'll have meant every word. 

Birthday Box

I made Brandon an exploding birthday box.

 I got the idea HERE.

I think it's pretty dang cute, but I also think Brandon is probably tired of my homemade cheesy gifts :)

It's SO easy to make, and it turned out really well! all you do is cut out plus signs in scrapbok paper and glue them to each other. haha. and then add pictures. 

It's supposed to be "an exploding year" but i couldn't choose just twelve pictures of us from the past year. so i decided i would do 19, because he turned 19. but then, i was just flipping through pictures and being nostalgic and chose more pictures from before 2012, and then i just didn't care how many pictures there were, because I loved pretty much every picture of us.

not to toot my own horn, but we're dang hilarious. and cute. and when we actually smile in pictures together, they're genuine smiles. and i like those.

so i forced myself to narrow it down to 23. plus the photo on the lid. so 24. haha. 

that awkward moment when your feet are as manly as his.

and 1999 is when we met, not when we were born. haha.

He's great. and did I mention he bakes? holla. Make me desserts every day, kay? thanks bran.

Pals Fo Life

Happy Birthday, dawg. I love you. even though you don't read my blog.

Sister Holden

Meet Janelle, she's a babe.

She's also one of my very best friends. ever. 

She's going to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

So i took some pictures of her because she needs one to send in with her application. 

I know i'm a rookie, so don't judge. 

It was fun. I love her! And I'm so proud of her and I couldn't be happier for her.

Obviously you can't use these two...but he's the devil cat/simba

gotta love her

Happy movies

 Tonight my devil best friend Mallorie made me watch "premonition" with Sandra bullock. stupidest movie EVER. she goes back to save her husband, and kills him by accident instead. SO so dumb. and awful and sad and kind of creepy. i hated her for about an hour. and then i ate an entire pizza.
It all reminded me that i'm very grateful for good happy movies.
I love them, and they love me.
picture overload.

movies with good music, not ominous stuff

Movies with a good romantic storyline

i love the ones that make me think

The ones that make me cry

and especially the ones that make me laugh.

one thing in common? they all have happy endings. 

good ones. 

not that creepy stuff people like to shove at my face -_-

Scwatch my back!

I am a pretty rude person, guys. really judgmental too. So once upon a time in girls camp there was this girl that i HATED because she was cool, but she was in cabin 3B. ew. and then, the next summer, the DAY that my sister Katrina got home from Russia, Katrina and my mom were counselors over the 4B cabin. I was in 4A. duh. and i was extremely jealous of all the cool stories that i knew they were getting to hear and all the time that the devils in the enemy cabin were getting to spend with my sister! I hated all of them. and then came fifth year of girls camp. the two cabins were forced together for the first time. I was upset to say the least, let me tell ya. But then something weird happened in my head and i realized that I was the one who was being rude and obnoxious. and once i stopped being prideful, i made some of my very best friends!

we thought we were SO cool. We got really close that year. I became especially close to Janelle and Mallorie, especially Mal. and then there was last summer which between EFY and girls camp only made us closer.

I'm pretty grateful for her about now. well, i always have been. and i think it's ridiculous that i used to hate her because she's my best friend. I didn't know two people could be alike. fo realsies.

She's sleeping on my floor right now. like a yard away from me. she looks greeeeeat when she sleeps haha

I'm glad that she's here. glad that I'm here, because I didn't want to be at first. but I LOVE BYUI. seriously, like a lot. and I'm glad i get to share the experience with her. We're not roommates but she lives next door and she keeps me sane. Her and Brandon Paul. but He's in Cal sooo, mal gets to take over for a few months.

She makes me laugh NON stop. and i like to pretend that i still hate her sometimes just because it's Hilarious  ha. she doesn't think so. I like her Blonde and brunette. I like our sense of humor. we're pretty crazy. we'll laugh at anything. for hours i might add. I can tell her anything. and she supports me in everything that i do. She also stays up late with me like erry dang night to talk while we do homework. She knows my flipping MIND. probably because she has the same one. we're so alike it's scary. 

I literally have a folder of pictures entitled, "NEVER put on facebook". It's full of hideous photos of me and mallorie. hahaha. we take pretty stinkin ugly pictures if i do say so myself. so obvi i had to throw this one in there. we're so dang pretty. and look! Half dome in the middle!

oh yeah and this one:

anyway.

I'm grateful today for my dang twin Mallorie Hakanson. 

and incase you were wondering about the title, one day i was next door at her house and i wanted to do my homework but there were these girls over who live across the hall and they are flipping WILD. they're the party apartment. there are always boys there and they're always LOUD. anyway, i wanted them to leave. but they are friends with alyssa, one of mal's roomies. So i decided that maybe if i started acting outrageously strange, they would leave. So i went up to mallorie and started doing to her what i would normally do to Jenae. naturally, i was a cat/two year old boy. I meowed and pretended to jump on flies and catch them with my paws. I talked with a speech impediment. I was being a baby. purposefully annoying the heck out of mallorie and being as weird as possible so that the crazy girls would leave my dang house.

I kept fake crying, "scwatch my back mao-wee! scwatch my back! I can't do my papow untiw you scwatch my back!" hahaha it was SOO annoying! I was fake whining like Bill Murray on what about Bob when he's like, "No! I NEED I neeeeed!" and Mallorie was getting annoyed and embarrassed but that's okay, i knew she'd get over it. what i really wnated was for those lunes to get out. well eventually it worked. they left. teehee. 

anyway

Happy November first!

those pictures...

you know those pictures of couples in leaves? they make me super uncomfortable. I don't know if it's because i know when they sit up, the back of their heads will be filthy, or just because everyone looks fat and weird when they're laying down. but they're just not okay at all.

and I've seen 234852 of them lately.

so here ya go, 

a cute little BFF pic

I promised myself i would never put this on the internet. ....

but it happened.

this picture isn't very awkward, but you know what is? When you're doorbell ditching cookies to some guys and anne marie just decides to open the door and put 'em right there in the middle of the living room while the rest of us try to scurry away from the light. 

cool.

needless to say, we were caught. but i'm not going to pretend like getting caught wan't my intention because let's be honest. what girls doorbell ditch cookies to guys and want it to be a secret forever?

this many: ___________

so anyway, I'm lovin the cold. and the freedom. not so much lovin the hills. or the 4 am homework. I love my american foundations class, and I think every young person in the world should hear Elder Holland's talk that i read last night because it is POWERFUL.

I love this school.

I don't love that my phone is inaccessible, that my favorite DArth Vader water Bottle was stolen from me on Monday (what the heck is with my bad luck lately?! just sayin.) but i am flipping happy as heck that i pretty much killed my classical art & music quiz this morning. ask me who painted The Birth of Venus. I dare ya. do you know how many symphonies Beethoven composed? I do. nine. and the ninth was while he was DEAF, guys. deaf. and it's flipping beautiful. I'm also pretty grateful that my science class was cancelled today, even if i didn't know and i went anyway. because then i just went to the Taylor building and studied the constitution for an extra 45 minutes. aaaaaaand then i aced my constitution test. BOOYAH. can you describe the contents of all 27 amendments? I can. Do you know the outline of the constitution? I do. 

can YOU make pizza? I can't, my mom can. and i kinda wanna ask her for the recipe ...but i know i don't have the time, money or patience to actually make it...

only 3 more weeks until Wreck-It Ralph, y'all.

If you take me to go see it, I will definitely love you forever.

I don't know if you read that right....FOREVER.

I mean it.