Category: Diary

Hi! It’s me! Lily!!!

The girls are over tonight.  We’re trying to spend as much time together as we can, because, well…  it’s going away soon.  I mean, yes, Beth, Crystal, and Diana will still be around, it won’t be the same… for any of us.

Sometimes we’re sad, but…  we’re also trying to just enjoy our time together while it lasts.

Yuki’s giving idol lessons to the girls.  Some of the non-local ones are listening in via facetime.  It’s not like they’re going to make a career of it, so she’s just telling stories and helping them learn how to fake a beautiful smile.  Crystal needs the most work.  She’s pretty intense, but her smile is a little creepy when she’s trying too hard.

Beth’s kinda soaking it up, though.  She’s thinking about becoming a model, and she’s really thinking of becoming a singer, at least for a hobby, so being able to fake a good mood is a good skill to have.  That’s a little sad, but I guess I can understand it.  Crystal also thinks she can use some of these lessons for her band.   I mean, yeah, it’s not like her band is supposed to be some cheerful idol group, but a little stage presence never hurts, and Yuki IS a pro.  She’d be a fool to not take the free coaching, and she knows it.  Heck, even I’m learning a few things.  Being a pianist is a very different skillset than being an idol, but a few things do track.

Oh, did I mention?  Some folks saw her band perform at our grand opening, and they have gigs now!  Nothing at the HEB center, but I guess some cafe wanted her to play, and they get to play every now and then at the MT as well (it’s an asian supermarket with a stage for a live band).

Anyway, we’re full of pizza and chocolate, and we have some fun stuff planned for tomorrow, so I guess it’s time for bed.

Love you all!!! ❤️

Hi! It’s me! Lily!!!

Not much to talk about tonight.  And I need to get up early.  Some nights I just don’t post when it’s like this, but I guess I’ll just say that, right now.

The girls are coming over tomorrow.  It should be fun.  It usually is.

Love you all!!! ❤️

Hi! It’s me! Lily!!!

You know what?  I’m an idiot!!! And I’m not even Canadian!!!

(whose line is it anyway joke, not dissing Canadians.  Blame Canada!!!)

Liz had her Birthday on July 4th, and I didn’t say anything!!!

She was off with her parents, so we celebrated low-key, I just gave her a present and told her happy birthday.  Her parents wanted to spend some time with her, before she goes to college, so they had a special day on their own.  And we all went to the park and played frisbee and stuff, so it just kind of slipped my mind.

Liz is important to me.  I mean, very important to me.  She was my first and best friend, and we’ve gone through a lot together.  And if Jack and I ever get married, she’ll even be my cousin-in-law!  And I actually wish I could have done more with her on her birthday, but it just didn’t work out.  Sometimes these things just don’t work out.  But I told her how much I love her, and, well…  she’s okay.  She knows.  She doesn’t need a lavish party or an expensive gift to know.  She knows I’d give my life for her if she needed it.

But she’d better not need it.  Apparently, I can’t be killed, so that’s an empty promise anyway.

I don’t always talk about things that happen in my life here.  Sometimes I don’t even talk about important things!  But it’s almost always just because I forgot or had other things to talk about and wanted to keep my diary short.  It’s already at, wow.  530,000 words?  That’s a lot.  I’ve done a lot of typing over the last three years or so.

I have a neat little word count plugin on this site I can use to see how many words it has.  It’s not perfect but pretty accurate.

Wow.  530,000 words.

Anyway, yeah.  I feel bad sometimes when I don’t talk about things I meant to talk about, but you know, I’m not perfect.  I’m just Lily.  An imperfect, only a little smart, sometimes really dumb and gullible eighteen year old girl… woman…  girl-woman?  I don’t know what to call myself.  Technically I’m a woman but I don’t feel like one most of the time.  I still feel like that fourteen year old girl who was sitting in an unfamiliar guest room crying her eyes out because she couldn’t even remember her name.

I’ve come so far over the past three years, but I’m still not perfect.  My sisters know that about me.  In fact, sometimes they’ll make jokes about how, well, not perfect I am.  But they love me anyway, and that’s what matters.  Sometimes they give me chocolate, sometimes they write me songs, sometimes they write me poems, sometimes they just look me in the eyes and tell me they love me, and sometimes…  we make a girl pile and they snuggle up close, close their eyes, and we drift off to sleep with our arms around each other.  Not often, and not that way, silly billies, it’s all about sisterhood, nothing else… but… they do love me.  And even when they get boyfriends and husbands and children and grandchildren, they will still love me.  And I’ll love them just as much.

There were a couple of times when one of them had a very nice dream, though.  boy, did she get embarrassed when she woke up…  but it’s okay.  It’s not on purpose.  That’s part of being human.  And, well, at least we’re not boys.  The things they tell me…

When Liz is afraid of storms, she tells me she feels safe when I’m with her.  Crystal tells me she feels safe when I’m around.  Beth says she feels like I’m her big sister and will always look out for her and protect her.  Diana, well, she loves that I love her cooking.  And all my other friends and sisters and relatives love me too.

I’m a lucky girl.  Maybe I’m the luckiest girl in the world.

And you love me too!!!

Love you all!!! ❤️

Hi! It’s me! Lily!!!

So there have been some events in the news that I haven’t mentioned.  Honestly, I try to avoid talking about events in the news, particularly ones that have to do with politics.  This isn’t a political diary!!!  It’s a Lily diary!!! I don’t like talking about politics!  I don’t even like thinking about politics.

But someone tried to kill one of the candidates a week ago.

Dave doesn’t think the government had anything to do with it, but he thinks they might have taken advantage of it and hoped it succeeded.  Well, clearly, it didn’t.  I’m glad for that.  Dave thinks it would have led to civil war if it did.  I don’t know, but maybe so.

The thing that gets me is, well, I could have prevented it.  If I’d known.  I could have popped in behind him and kicked him off the roof.

But that’s something that Mrs. X. warned me about.  Doing that kind of thing isn’t my place.  Because even if I made an exception and did it just once, what about the things I couldn’t do?  It’s best to not get involved without being asked to by the Boss himself.  And with all the cameras, well, that might have been a crapshow anyway.

And besides…  Apparently his survival was an actual bona-fide miracle.  According to the boss… he doesn’t need us to make miracles, he can do just fine himself.  It’s one of those subtle miracles that you get to decide whether you think it’s one or not…  but I get to ask the boss directly.  Yay?

Sabby thinks God has a plan for him.  Maybe she’s right.  But none of us seriously think he’s like “God’s anointed” or anything like that.  I know better than anyone that sometimes God has a use for someone, in spite of themselves, not because of themselves.

The other thing is that the current president isn’t running again.

Okay, so…  I don’t really have a strong opinion about who gets to be president next time.  I’m old enough to vote now, and I will, but I haven’t looked too much into it.  Dave and Sabby usually have different ideas about who they’ll vote for anyway (though they never tell me how to vote).  But even, well, the one who didn’t want the other guy to be elected was remarking about how the current guy can’t string together two coherent sentences – and that debate was embarrassing.  So, he’s out.  No one knows who’ll replace him, though apparently the current VP will.  Sabby calls her “cackles”.  I wonder why.

How do I feel about all that?

Well, it’s not that I don’t care.  I mean, I kinda don’t, but it’s not that I don’t.  It’s just that these are two people I really don’t like anyway.  I don’t like the current guy because he’s, well…  not good at his job and I’ve heard things about how he, well…  wasn’t good with his daughter and his son got convicted of something.  I don’t like the other guy because he’s just kind of a jerk.  I mean, I get why people do, but I just don’t like him.  Will I vote for him, though?  Well, umm… maybe.  You can be a jerk and still do a good job.

I mean, the nicest people in the government tend to be the least competent, right?

Anyway, that’s all I’ll talk about with politics.  Sabby and Dave have a lot stronger opinions, but I won’t share those her.e  That’s not what this diary is for!!!

Speaking of this diary… the time of ending is fast approaching.  The time of endings, and beginnings.  We have maybe one or two big events coming up, then… well, it’s gone.

I popped over to Japan this morning to have more lessons with Miki and the choreographer.  I’m… not a great dancer, but I’m getting good enough that I don’t feel embarrassed.  So that’s something.  I’m talking to the producer about costuming, but they think the cosplay uniforms they were all wearing are sufficient.  I think so too.  This time I brought back some dango and everyone’s been chewing on it all day.  Mochi is the best!!!

Love you all!!! ❤️

Hi! It’s me! Lily!!!

Well, it was a day, I suppose.

Jack and I did go out.  Then we talked.  A lot.  There are some times when we go out that we can’t really keep our hands off each other, but tonight wasn’t one of those nights.  We just talked.

We talked about the present, and more importantly, the future.  It’s kind of cliche to say we talked about our “hopes and dreams”, and we only kind of did.  It’s more that we talked about our hopes and dreams together.  Like, what did we want to get out of our relationship other than just finding some comfort in each other?

It turns out that… we really don’t know.  We know that we do love each other and do want each other and all that fun stuff, but at the end of the day, neither of us could say exactly what we wanted out of all of this.

And maybe that’s okay.  Maybe it’s normal.  Maybe a couple sometimes throws themselves into the deep end of a relationship and then swims out.  I guess that takes about seven years, and as often ends in divorce as not.

I do love the time we spend time together – especially that time when we do some of the things that, well, adults do.  You know, clothes on the floor and all that.  (we don’t do everything but almost).  And it’s nice when we go on dates and spend time together.  And I love spending time with Grace (she’s getting big now!) and his family (and Lily the dog too).  I love all of it.  But what do we want?

Neither of us could answer.

And, well…  Maybe that’s a question we should answer before I say yes.

He seems to understand all this.  It’s not like he’s upset at me or anything.  He’s disappointed, but he seems to think – or at least understand – that he’s being a bit selfish.  There’s nothing wrong with selfish, but the stakes are really high on this one.

Okay… in other news.

Crystal wrote me a piano piece.

I didn’t really think she had that in her.  I really didn’t.  She’s pretty good at songwriting when it comes to the rocky kinds of music.  But she really, well…  went on a whole other level.  And it’s good, too.  Not Mozart good, but I certainly wouldn’t mind performing it.  She’s got this innate understanding of harmony that I wish I had.  I mean, I’m a good piano player and I understand what I’m playing, but she just seems to know how chords fit together and how to voice the piece that’s on a whole other level.  And she doesn’t even really know the repertoire – she’s doing it pretty much based on sound, and the few lessons she took.  I did have to give her feedback on a few chords that are pretty much impossible to play (you can make chords that require some real hand contortions), but she fixed those pretty easily.

She’s an amazing girl.  She really is.  I wish she could see that, the way the rest of us do.  She’s amazing.  All that stuff she went through, and it turns out, well, she has all this talent and feeling inside of her, and it’s just been itching to get out.

Her parents are… well, they’re supporting her, but they seem sad.  It’s like they’re beating themselves up for not noticing.  Maybe they should, but, well… they’re not really bad parents.  At least they’re well intentioned.

I ear Allison is taking up saxophone too.  Yay Allison!!  I haven’t seen her much lately, I guess her family’s having some medical issues or something.  But it seems to be getting better.  They’ve had their share of problems over the past few years, unfortunately.

Anyway…  other than church today, which was mostly uneventful, not much going on.  Maybe some storms tomorrow.

Love you all!!! ❤️

Hi! It’s me! Lily!!!

So I got news today!  We’re going to be doing a handshake event in Houston!!! Me and all the girls!!!

Haha!!!

I don’t mind, but a couple of the girls are freaking out a bit.  They don’t know how to idol!!!  But I told them it’s okay, Yuki and Miki will teach them.  It’s pretty much just about letting them clasp your hand, smiling, and telling them it’s nice to see them until they get herded out.  And they get to sign merch and stuff, too.

I have a feeling Crystal’s just going to be all tsundere, but I think that’s fine, as long as she’s consistent about it.

I have no sympathy at all.  They played a prank on me in a Japanese train.  It’s good for them, anyway.

Otherwise, it was a pretty quiet day.  No storms or anything, a little hot but not excessively so, particularly for the middle of July, and we might get storms in a couple of days.  This is unusual for July, but hey.  I guess we’ll have our drought next month, or something.

Well, I don’t have a lot to say right now, I guess.  I have a date with Jack tomorrow night.  We’re going to talk about a lot of stuff.  I hope it turns out alright.  It usually does, though.  He’s not a bad guy at all.  Men have feelings too.  Sabby told me that’s the most important thing to remember, and they’re not always the same feelings I have.  As long as I remember that, it should turn out alright.

Love you all!!! ❤️

Hi! It’s me! Lily!!!

I asked Sabby today why she thinks her marriage lasted as long as it has.

She didn’t even hesitate.  “Because we came into our marriage already fully formed,” she said, looking a little wistful.   “Some couples meet as children or teenagers or even young adults and grow together… and sometimes they can even survive and have a happy marriage, but it’s just so much trouble to try to grow up into your own people while still, well, not being your own person.  I mean.. if you change like this, will he leave you?  If you want to do that, will he be mad at you?”  She looked pensive.  “Dave and I met young, and in some ways he and I grew up together, but…  we didn’t marry too soon.  I had a lot of growing up to do…  and so did he, but in a different way.”

“What way did he have to grow up?”

“He had to learn to accept me.”  She looked sad.  “I mean, I had a past.  He… didn’t trust me for a very long time.”  She sighed, like she was deflating.  “I don’t blame him.  I didn’t trust me, either.”

“But… you made it work, right?”

“Well, duh,” she said, a little of the Sabby spitfire I know in her voice.  “We’re still married, aren’t we?  But… it wasn’t always easy.  The only thing we had sometimes was the promise we made to each other.  That meant something to both of us.  We made it work.  We… waited until we could keep our promises.”  She looked sad.  “Or… when we could believe the other person would keep theirs.”  She looked uncharacteristically vulnerable.  “I knew he could keep his.  But he… well…”

I remembered the very first piece of advice Jack and I got, back when I took that fateful trip to Orlando with Liz’s family.  “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

If I were to say yes to Jack right now, could I keep the promise?  Well, probably.  I mean, I don’t have any reason to think I couldn’t, right?  We’ve been together for nearly, what, three years now?  I love him.  But…  is that a promise we can’t keep?

I don’t think either of us know, not really.  And until we’re sure, or at least a little sure…

Anyway, what’s done is done.  For now, anyway.  He’s not upset.  He’s a little disappointed and sad.  I can tell.  I know that a part of his reason was that he was afraid.. but that wasn’t the whole reason.  I think he really does want to make me his, to make a family with me…  and I understand.  Family is important.  But a family that will last is even more important.

Diana’s parents aren’t together.  She lives with her mother.  She, well… the scars are still there.

But, Crystal’s parents are still together, and she has a lot of scars too.

Life is complicated, isn’t it?

Miki’s choreographer is happy with my progress, but she wants to see videos of the other girls.  I’ll try to get everyone (that I can) together this weekend.  The aidols are making occasional trips to Tokyo too to work with me and the choreographer.  They seem really excited.  And sometimes we get ramen after.  They’re in college now so it’s a bit harder, finding time for everyone.

Love you all!!! ❤️

Hi! It’s me! Lily!!!

I gave Jack my answer today.

It’s “Not yet.”  Or, “Yes, in a few years,” if you want to be a little more positive about it.  It all comes down to the same thing in the end, really.

I didn’t want to tell him no.  I didn’t tell him no.  I have no desire to actually outright reject him, but…  it’s not the right time.  And, well, he seems to know that as well.  He said his parents had a long talk with him, and, well, he thinks it’s not quite the right time either now.

I’m still his girlfriend.  I’m not going to be with anyone else.  And if he asks me at the right time, I’ll say yes, and I’ll say it without reservations.  But… it’s just not the right time.  it’s too much.  It’s not so much that we’re too young, it’s just that when we get married, when we finally get married, I want to actually be able to live with him.  Not get married or even engaged and then head off halfway around the world.  It just feels wrong to do that.

But I’m still sad.  Isn’t this, well, what every girl wants?  And I, well…  I turned it down.  For now, anyway.

Anyway, all us girls are still practicing our dances.  I’m still working with the choreographer and Yuki is helping them do limbering exercises and stuff.  Turns out Beth has a lot of natural grace, but Diana, well, doesn’t.  but Yuki thinks everyone can do it with a little practice.  Rebecca and the others have their tickets now and will be heading to Houston a week before, and, well, it’s going to be quite a spectacle, I guess.  It’s a once-in-a-lifetime kinda thing (for most of us, anyway), and I’d say I got my revenge pretty thoroughly.  They’re still a little, no, a lot, nervous about it.  But too bad!  They started it!!!  haha!!!

And… I have my ticket, along with Emiko and Yuki, to go to Japan.  It’s a one way ticket.  I guess I’m doing this.

The apartment I got in Japan is actually really nice.  I think Yuki and I will make a good life there.  For a while, anyway.  It’s got a nice bathtub, and tatami floors, and everything.  I took pictures and showed them to Yuki and she’s actually really happy with it.  I’ve already signed the lease but it won’t be ready for a little while – I’ll start shuttling stuff over there little by little when I get it.  But as I mentioned, a few things will either have to be shipped or delivered.  Yuki likes the idea of having some nice, fluffy futons, and they are comfortable.

Today…  Sabby told me she’s proud of me.

I think that meant more to me than almost anything else she’s ever told me.

Love you all!!! ❤️

Hi! It’s me! Lily!!!

…  what am I supposed to say?

What am I supposed to do?

I spent a lot of time today talking to a lot of people.  I even talked to Jack’s parents.  I talked to Sabby and Dave…  I even booked a little time with the pastor.

Everyone had advice.  Some of it good, some of it, well, advice…  but at the end of the day, everyone – to a one – said it was ultimately my decision, and no one could make it for me.

They’re right.  They’re very right.  And…

It’s easy to make decisions when you’re deciding simple things.  Deciding to go to school in Japan was a fairly simple thing.  It’s an easy mistake to rectify, if it turns out to be a mistake.  I can just… stop going to school in Japan.  Problem solved.  But Jack isn’t that easy.  Jack’s… another person, and another person I care about.  If I mess this up, well… I’m not the only one who’ll get hurt.  And maybe Jack’s already hurt.  I don’t know if he’d tell me, not really.  Because he cares about me, too.

And now I’m just sitting here, in my room, and the tears are threatening again, and they have been all day.  I don’t even really know why.  Isn’t it supposed to be a happy occasion?  Someone wants to marry me – and he wants to marry me.  Yes, of course his reasons are complicated, but never once have I thought that at least one of the big reasons isn’t that he loves me.  Of course he does.

And that’s what makes it more complicated, because it takes more than love to make something like this work.  That’s something nearly everyone told me today.  Love doesn’t pay the bills.  Love doesn’t keep you fed.  Love may keep you from killing each other when they annoy you, but that’s about all it really does.  It gives you a reason to stay together, but it solves nothing.  And children….  I mean, what would having a child mean, now?  I know we can wait, and probably would even if we were to, but…

I don’t want to say “no”, and I probably won’t.  But I don’t feel like saying “yes” is right either, at least not now.  We get married, and then what?  We head off to different parts of the world and then have to struggle to spend time with each other?  How could we even make it work?  That’s the question.

The question I don’t really have an answer to.

This is the life of an adult, I suppose.  When you’re a teenager the problems are simple.  Go to the mall, or to a big box store?  Get good grades, or sleep in a little, if you’re allowed to?  But there’s no good answer here.  None at all.  No matter what answer I choose, I don’t know if it’s the right one.

And maybe that’s the right answer, in itself.

But that doesn’t make this easier.

I need chocolate.  And Sabby’s chest to cry on.

On the plus side, this was a surprise to Jack’s parents.  They’re going to have a talk with him.  I hope they’re nice about it.  They’ve been good about things, so I think they will.

Hi! It’s me! Lily!!!

Ummm.

Jack proposed last night.

I was, well, not expecting it.

At least he didn’t make a big spectacle out of it, that would be embarrassing.  We just went on a date, and after the date, he pulled out a ring and asked me to marry him.

I…  didn’t say yes.  But I didn’t say no either.  I said we need to have a very long talk about what that means.

He seemed disappointed, but at least he understood.  Well, he said he did, anyway.

I asked him why now?   He said it was because he loved me and wanted to marry me.  Well, yeah.  When you love someone and want to marry them, generally you’ll propose to them.  But that’s not what I was asking.  Because I have a suspicion as to “why now”.  And after talking for a while, I pried it out of him.

I’m going to Japan, he’s going to Ohio, and he’s afraid we’re going to drift apart.

The thing is, it’s not that I don’t want to marry him.  It’s not.  I’ve been thinking about that for a while, and I hope that someday I do marry him.  I want to marry him and have a nice house and a bunch of little Jack-Lilies running around.  But not for that reason, not out of fear, not out of worry, not out of, well, whatever that is that isn’t, well, pure.

I’m afraid I’m going to lose him, someday, too.  I mean it’ll be a little easier since I can travel to Ohio frequently, but that will take a toll if I do it too often, and it really puts all of the onus on me, doesn’t it?  I mean, he can come to Japan, but it’ll be a significant travel time and cost, and all I have to do is think about it.  There’s an imbalance there.  There’s a lot of things to think about.

We didn’t argue or fight or anything.  We didn’t break up or say hurtful things or anything like that either.  In fact, we shared a kiss before we went our separate ways, and it was the hot, embarrassing kind.  But…  after I got home, I just kind of flopped on my bed.  I thought for a while….  and I cried.

I didn’t cry because I was sad..  I cried because I was frustrated.

Is this what it means to be an adult?

The more I’m an adult…  the more I think I don’t really like it.  The decisions are all mine and I’m just as likely to make a wrong one as a right one… and if I make the wrong one, I get to live with the regret.  For the rest of my life, maybe.

Love you all!!! ❤️