The everyday...

I'm sitting in my living room listening to the tropical rain falling outside my window. My roommate is sitting on the opposite couch from me studying for her CPA certification. The sound of laughter echoes from my other roommate's bedroom. We look up from our books to make a joke or gripe about our tasks. She takes random breaks to smoke a cigarette, which I accompany her on - not because I smoke but because I love the chats we have out on our front stoop. I learn so much about my friends while doing nothing. I'm amazed everyday. It's amazing to see where someone came from, and to know where they are heading and to analyze the contrast. To look at this successful woman who has more drive than anyone I know, it is proposterous to think that she had a juvenile arrest report, yet she does. I love people with a history. It gives them character.

This all hangs in a delicate balance. I know that in one year I will move on from this place and this beautiful chapter in my life will be just another page in my scrapbook. Random cigarette breaks, Rockband in the living room, and the goldfish tank on the corner will be but distant memories somewhere in the future. I want to pause time and hold onto these minutes before they pass me by. It is these moments that I love to look back on - not just the big stuff of vacations and weddings and such. The things I love to remember most are the small details of the everyday occurrences that make my life wonderful. The humidity in the air, the feel of the cheap suede futon cover I'm sitting on, the cooling feel of the tile on my feet, and the low hum of the ceiling fan will be my favorite memories of this place. Right here in this moment I am happy.

"I remember feeling low, and I remember losing hope, and I remember all these feelings and the day they stopped..."

Late at night my mind wakes up. It comes alive with feelings that I never knew I had. I could lay on the couch all day and think of nothing, yet the second the day fades away and the midnight moon makes its debut in the sky it's like my thoughts and emotions unlock that hidden door to my unconscious and let me in. I love it.

In these late nights, my brain and my heart allow themselves to truly feel and identify how I feel about the situations going on in my life. I can be free with myself. Aside from this blog, I never admit my secrets out loud to anyone. I'm probably the only girl I know who lies to her own journal. I'm always afraid that someone will see it or judge it... that they will judge me.

In ordinary circumstances I don't care what anyone has to say about me, but when it comes to the words that my heart speaks aloud, I am guarded with them. I'm possessive and always on edge - like I'm just waiting for someone to cast the first stone. these are not unfounded feelings. In my past life, someone always did.

This blog, to me is a way to be honest with myself. I am telling the story to myself, and I am but a phantom - a shadowy figure you can picture and imagine however you see fit. I am in no way ashamed of the life I walked away from, but instead I am afraid that my former life will change the way the people I love see me. Here in my life, I am happy. I am free and I wake up every single day absolutely ecstatic about the day. Every single day of my life I wake up with things to look forward do, and it is the most amazing feeling I ever had - and I did it all myself. I once made the mistake of sharing this previous life with a man I was dating years ago, and the conversation turned into an argument of "Why" I didn't run away, or defend myself, or take advantage of the options available to me. for 45 minutes I had to listen to a man tell me all the reasons I should be mad, and unforgiving to the people who hurt me in the past. How does one justify making a girl they claim to care about question herself and her strength - just because he needed me to need him. It's disgusting actually.

I sometimes look back on my old life and I ask myself the same questions... "Why didn't you leave? Why didn't you run away and never come back?" I know why I can never answer myself... Because an adult, who has so much more life and experience than a child does could never truly understand the reasoning for their decisions. I have to trust that when I was there, I made the decisions that I could live with. My 12 year old self would have never responded to these questions - she would have said "you could never understand my life" and walked away. she probably would have flipped me off on the way out the door too. I'm letting her go. Why should I question her motives... The decisions my 12 year old self made might have been hard at the time, but I never let life break me down, I kept my eyes forward toward the light at the end of the tunnel, and I turned that terrible childhood into an amazing life. With so much to live for and so much to look forward to, how could I regret any step of this crazy, happy, sad, and mixed up journey that has become my life. I can barely stand the anticipation of what will happen next.

My Secret

So I have been following the Post secret project for many many years now. You might have seen in on this site under the heading http://postsecret.blogspot.com. It's a project where you mail in your secrets and Tom, the guy who started the project posts them on the internet every week. He also prints books withthem. I have to say that it is an absolutely inspiring and fascinating project, and I have been addicted to the blog for years now. I also own all the books!

Anyway, Years ago I too mailed in a secret. My deepest secret. It never appeared in the page. I almost felt like I needed to see it though. It needed to be tangible and real, and put to rest... so instead, since I blog anonymously anyway, I am posting it here. So here you have it, the secret I mailed in with a piece of a 15 year old suicide note attached to it. It said:

"In all seven suicide attempts the one thing I have learned is that I am an utter failure at death - but that it is the only thing in the world that I will ever be unable to conquer."

Goodbye secret. Rest in peace. I don't need you to define my success anymore, I'll let my happiness do that instead.

"If I become anther, dig me up from what is covering the better part of me"

Throughout the many chapters of my life I have sometimes come to question the value of my relationships. This is not in the sense of what other people, mean to me, but what I, as a person mean to myself, and how I let that sense dictate my relationships with the men that come into and out of my life. For as long as I can remember I have always shied away from serious relationships and commitments. I tell myself of how bad I am at relationships and how I am a cheater, and I am incapable of love. At first I began to tell myself these things as a comfort to why my relationships always seem to fail - I mean the only constant feature of all your failed relationships is you, correct? I am a constant feature - a self fulfilling prophecy. I get scared at the idea of feelings, and I don't know how to compromise. Eventually I guess i noticed that there is some truth to these beliefs.

Through the progression of scum bags and sleaze balls that has been marching into and out of my home and my life, over the past 8 years or so, I came to the conclusion that I didn't want to be loved. that I don't want anyone... Me and relationships just don't work out. Now I see it for what it really is - I subconsciously gravitate toward men who have nothing in common with me so that I know I have a reason to end it. In this same manner, I find that I choose men who are looking for the same...

I tell myself that I am just not the kind of girl you date... I'm good for a fling, or to go out and have some fun, but that I personally don't possess the qualities needed to make someone want to love me. I don't know how I started to let myself believe this. I, in all my confidence, and fire allowed myself to feel cheap and devalued by too many years of only meeting the kind of individuals that thrive on selfishness and power. I'm ashamed of myself. The same qualities that I love so much in myself and seek so deeply in others are the things that make me believe that I am not good enough to hold onto the attention of another. I don't understand why.

I am spontaneous, and wild. I live everyday of my life as if the world will end tomorrow. I love to go out and meet new people. I am outgoing, and exciting, yet by society's definitions I am a gamble to love. I have even had close friends of mine tell me that they would be afraid to love me because they need to know that the person they fall for isn't going anywhere, I can't give them that. Some people need stability... My personal vendetta is in those who refuse to learn that there is more to me than bars and boobs. The me that I share with my friends is compassionate and feeling. I am talented and thoughtful, I am not just some dumb chick you met at the bar. I am disappointed with that I allowed myself to be anyone's second best.

For as long as I can remember I allowed myself to be held by men with no aspirations, or who had girlfriends who i didn't know about. Men who only call to hang out for drinks at night but never attempt to see me during the day, or others who want to continue to see me but never to date. I feel like I am the girl who occupies your time while you look for someone to love. I have been getting the crap end of relationships for as long as I can remember - listening to all the nice things they have done for girls in the past, but never having them done for myself, or finding the one broke idiot who can only afford to sit at his house watching movies unless I pay for us to do something else. I do this until I get fed up and stop answering phone calls and essentially disappear without explanation. I feel that if you need an explanation, you are too stupid to understand it anyway.

Dating is a game, I get that, and to be honest, I'm good at it - never allowing the other person to get the better of me - always keeping my guard up - expecting some sort of inexcusable behavior is waiting somewhere in the near future - and I'm usually right. I'm tired of inappropriate texts from my exes, or obnoxious comments from the ones I meet. I'm sick of the oblivion of an idiot who hasn't figured out that when I run into you and some blond in public when you are supposed to be out with me, I really don't want you to call me on Saturday night to get drinks. (And for the record to anyone who didn't know, No man has any honorable intentions when he calls a woman after 11pm asking to meet up - these intentions become even less honorable when he has been drinking).

I am DONE! Period! End of sentence! D-O-N-E DONE! I am worth more than drinks at 12am. I am more than a pair of double D's. I'm through with making the same mistakes over and over. DONE!

I know some of you reading this are thinking "oh wow she wants a relationship." Don't jump to any conclusions... I don't really know what I do want right now, all I know is what I don't. I'm not lonely by any means... I am living in my favorite city, surrounded by my closest friends. I get hugged, and encouraged, and told that I am loved. I am not lacking any love whatsoever. I simply woke up today and something in me just snapped. I realized that I am the reason my relationships never work out. I am the one who allows this to happen and I have no one to blame but myself. It is a mistake that I won't soon make again. I want to be as inspired and excited to see the person I date as I am to see my best friends. I want to be accepted, and valued for the uniqueness I possess. I don't want to tell someone all about me, I want them to put the puzzle together on their own. And until I meet someone who can do this for me, I don't want to be bothered at all. I'm making changes in my life as of today and I am finished being that obnoxious story of the wild girl in someone else's scrapbook that only takes up an eighth of the page...

Late night sadness

It's May of 2007. I am 24 years old and I am finally receiving my associates degree from community college. I'm excited and happy over this small victory. My parents have come out to visit me and all of my friends are out and about for the celebration. We have a week planned of all sorts of great things to do together. I'm feeling on top of the world.

Fast forward to the second to last day of my parent's visit. I am at fisherman's wharf lagging back with my father as my mother drags us through more stores than I have ever wanted to visit in one day. I'm freezing cold from the wind, and my father looks just as annoyed as me. That's when it hits... a Bomb goes off. I can't see anything, and can barely believe it is happening... Only it wasn't a bomb at all. It was the sound my heart made when my father explains to me that my grandmother is not going to get better this time, and that she has decided to stop treatments. My eyes swell with tears, but I can't let them go. Not in this public place- not in front of my mother and father. I have got to get out of here. I need to get out of here NOW!

It's the next day, and I just dropped my parents off at the airport and return the rental car. I board the F-Line from fisherman's wharf to head downtown to go to work. As I board the train my phone rings - a frantic call from my sister. she demands to know if they told me or not... Apparently she has known all along. she tells me stories of "do not resuscitate" orders that now hang from my grandmother's freezer and bed post. I hear about the stranger from hospice care who has taken up permanent residence in my grandmother's home - in the bed that i used to sleep in when I spent the night as a child. My head is spinning and my heart is racing. I can't breathe again. Tears welling up... I can't cry here. I need to Get out of here NOW! I try to calm myself with reminders that my sister is a hyperchondriac and she is probably just stoned again, but it's too late. Tears are pouring our of my eyelids and collecting in a shallow pool at the rim of my plastic sunglasses. I'm broken.

Fast forward 1 year and 8 months later. It's may of 2009. I'm sitting up in my house in Hawaii. It's 3am, and I am recalling every single memory I have of her and every detail of how I ended up here. Surprisingly there is an old blog of mine that commemorates every feeling I had through the process. A feeling of apathy has taken over my body. Laziness has held me in its firm grip for a month now. I feel ugly, and think I am visibly gaining weight. I couldn't land a summer internship because of this broken economy. I'm heading to visit my family 2 weeks to celebrate the christening of my beautiful new niece. My positivity is fading more and more by the day. I somehow started to feel something for a man who is completely wrong for me, and although I know he is wrong I can't help but wonder if I looked more like a barbie doll would he have been more interested in me? I'm not broken, but I am bruised. Right here in this very moment, all I want is a glance of her smile, and a word of encouragement. I want to feel the anticipation of going home to see her. I want to sit up for hours at the kitchen table talking and laughing with her. I want to see the excitement in her eyes when I come home for the first time in months and she knows that she is the first person I came to see.

I want to feel the acceptance of someone who, unlike my mother, honestly has my best interests in mind. I want to be able to make a decision without receiving unwelcome and unsolicited advice from someone who has never taken an interest in my life but has no problem with demanding that I live it the way she would like. I want the motivation to get out of this desk chair and do something with my day other than sleep and eat. I am fading out, and I'm worried for myself, and I don't know how to ask for help.

I have nightmares about strange things and my dreams continue to refuse to let me sleep through the night. I buy books on self fulfillment, and meditation, but I don't read them. I call to reserve a storage unit for my belongings but I don't finalize it. I think about how much school work I have to finish, but I don't do it. I'm lost and I don't know what to do. I feel complete and total loss of motivation, and I can't help but feel overcome with the sensation of loss and missing her. Sometimes, even after all this time, I still feel like I lost the only person who will ever understand and know how to speak to my soul.

My blanket doesn't smell like home anymore

Since I was a little girl, there was always a yellow blanket at my grandmother's house that I loved. She knitted it herself, and the spaces between the threads are far enough apart that the blanket might seem to be more for show than for warmth. It's thick sunshine colored threads and purposefully frayed edges, however, seem to provide the exact amount of heat needed at any time and any season. Over the years, this blanket as adorned my playpen as a baby, and served as my companion on the floor while watching television. When I finally moved away from my hometown, I would take the red eye flight home to visit, and spent hours sitting on the couch catching up with my grandmother until sleep slowly overtook me and I fell into a long deep slumber. When I would wake up, I would always find this little yellow blanket thrown over my body. It felt like home.

It's no surprise then that when my grandmother passed away a couple years ago, this was the one memento that I personally removed from her house. When I look at it, something just reminds me of home, and I forget how drastically my life has changed over the last 2 years. A little piece of me remembers that I didn't always refer to California as my "home," and that I would spend weeks in anticipation of going to New Jersey and being in the company of the one person in my life who ever truly understood me and loved me anyway. It sounds silly, but this blanket isn't just some stupid trinket like Lunis would carry around for security in the Peanuts comics, it is a piece of everything that was good about my childhood - it is the work of love from my grandmother. Until recently, Somehow this blanket has somehow retained a faint trace of the scent of her home. Maybe it was in my mind, but the smell of her house had seemed to be permanently ground into the fabric of the threads... Until Now.

I know it is obvious that after 2 years, anything can lose its original scent, but it still made me sad to realize that the traces of my grandmother have finally removed themselves from my blanket, and I guess I just miss her. My life is moving on, and so am I. My family has grown in so many ways. I have gained 3 cousins and a niece since she left my life - all of whom I love dearly. Family events don't seem as empty as they did that first Christmas without her, but every once in a while my mind takes me back to a different part of my life, and I feel ashamed for denying that it was once my world. I don't want to lose the memories I once cherished so much, or the lessons that I finally understand... Remembering my grandmother reminds me that despite everything that happened, there was beauty and happiness in my childhood. Sometimes I try so hard to shut out the bad that I block out the good as well.

I have filled my life with people who love me. I have friends who are like family in 3 states - including the one I live in now. I have learned to let these people into my heart and share with them the parts of me I once felt I could only share with my grandmother - my failures, and embarrassments as well as my hopes and my happiness. This has helped me to come to terms with her death, and taught me that everything will work itself out in the end. However, on nights like tonight, when I am scrambling to put together some sort of plan for my life - wrapped up in my little yellow blanket, I find that my heart aches to hear her voice - just for one word of encouragement to get me going, or a small breath of air that feels like home...

"We do not travel to discover other places... We travel to discover ourselves"

I want to discover the world down to the last detail. Thoughts of this keep me awake at night. Visions of far away places and waning sunsets invade my waking dreams. I hold on to these visions of the amazing places I have visited thus far, and I realize that no photo I have ever taken will do my memories the justice they deserve. I can feel the sand under my toes at the Gulf of Carpentaria, and feel the jump in my heart at the sight of a huge manta ray soaring across the surface of the water. I can still feel the weight of my scuba gear at the great barrier reef, and I can remember the smell of the David. I remember the feel of the velvet rope that I touched when I gazed at the real life Mona Lisa, and I the way my heart felt like it might burst when I saw my first real Leonardo Davinci artwork - the unfinished Adoration of the Magi. These places and senses are all ingrained in my heart. The people who I meet along the way leave their footprints forever etched in my soul. As I sit here - stationary until my studies are finished I can't help but ache for more of this. I received a taste of exploration and I have been literally starving for more ever since.

We as people are raised with certain expectations for our lives. From a little girl I was told of the children I would one day have, and the house and wedding I would get all of my own. My mother fed me fairy-tales of this wedding to my real life ken doll and how it would be the Happiest day of my life. I was told that I was to attend college right out of high school so that I could enter the world of adulthood and make money to buy all of these wonderful things like cars and boats, and family vacations to Disneyland. I was never taught to expect that life would be anything other than this. How then, did I become this person.

I used to think my adventures were mere pages in my book of life. These pages would just be the prelude to my fairytale marriage, and one day be just something wonderful to tell my children about. "You will grow out of this, it's just a phase" echoes from the tongues of those who don't know me well. As time moves on and I grow older, I've had a massive revelation: What if this adventure became my story? What if I decided to shun the idea of marriage and children and spend my life exploring all the beauty this vast world has to offer? the more time I spent thinking about it the more it made sense. I don't HAVE to get married. I don't HAVE to have children. I don't HAVE to live in suburbia and spend my money on ballet lessons and soccer uniforms. I mean, by no means do I look down upon those individuals who want this life. I celebrate their happiness, and I wish them well in their quest, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that deep down I have never wanted these things to begin with.

I fall in love easily with places and ideas, but my ability to fall in love with another individual is rather lacking. I don't feel as though this is necessarily a bad thing, however. My life is filled with love every day. I have friends and family who love me and who I love the same. I really don't feel as though I am lacking anything. Some call me selfish for entertaining these ideas, but in all actuality I think that true selfishness would be making a decision to start a family of my own and expect them to constantly uproot their lives to satisfy my impulsive nature. Children need stability, and I don't believe I am capable or desirous of having a stable life.


I have come to enjoy my instability and to embrace my impulsiveness. I feel most alive when I am in a new place. Perhaps some day my views will change. Maybe someday I will trade in my compass for the keys to a house on Spruce Street. But for the time being, I look forward to embarking on this extraordinary journey, with stars in my eyes, and adventure in my heart, I know I can turn this dream life into my reality.