Sometimes you just know...

For as long as I can remember I have questioned the spiritual world. What has happened in the past, what will happen in the future, and if there is any way that we as people are spiritually connected to it in our subconscious. Is it possible for us to know the fates of ourselves and of others before an event actually takes place, or is life just a series of coincidences??? This is definitely an age-old question.

My father has had a gift for as long as he can remember. He just knows when things are going to happen. As with anyone who is a parent can probably attest that they can do for their own children, he just knows when I am up to something. Even as an adult he will still call me right in the middle of a dilemma or a heated conversation just to ask if I am OK. But it goes much further than this. For example, he drives by a place on the street and he will visibly shudder - 2 days later there is a horrible accident at that location. However, the best example I can give of this came when my 18 year old cousin was killed in an accident. It's never good news when the phone rings at 2am, we all know that, but out of all my elderly relatives and grandparents that could have caused this phone call, my father sat straight up in bed and said "Michael is Dead." This story still haunts me to this day.

I remember myself the first time I felt this. I guess to everyone who has experienced something like this it comes differently - sometimes in a dream, or a feeling... Mine experience speaks to me in a clear voice - not an out loud audible voice, but a voice just the same and I will never forget the first time I heard it. I was 12 years old and I was playing in my front yard - leaning on the branch of the tree with white bark by my mother's window. It was my grandmother's birthday, and I remember it stopped me in my tracks when it said "Enjoy this time, because it is the last birthday she is ever going to have with you." I burst into tears... I heard this voice so many times after - as if it was preparing me for what was to come in a way that no one else would. The next time I heard it was 4 months later -when my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer. My mother broke the news to me and I went out to take a walk to sort out my thoughts. This was the end of November 1995. On my walk I heard the voice say "She will leave you around Christmas Day." I was shocked. Where on earth was this coming from?!?!?!

Fast Forward to the day after Christmas. My mother and I were in her car and she was telling me that my grandmother was getting worse and that it was a matter of weeks before we lost her. I just knew she didn't have that long. The very next day my grandmother passed. The whole day is so full of activities that I can't bear to write them all down, but I do remember one part the most. I was in her house - as I had been everyday for the last month. My dad came by on his way home from work. He said his "hello's" and then decided to go home to change and grab dinner and then he was going to come back. He asked me if I wanted to come with him. I was suddenly faced with a serious moral dilemma - I knew that by the time I came back she wouldn't be there. I decided to go... I couldn't bear the thought of watching the woman I loved with all my heart take her last breath. Looking back now I don't think she wanted me to either - I had been staying at her house everyday for a month, and the 20 minutes I left for was the time she decided to let go... I got home with my father and not 5 minutes later my uncle called - saying that she was taking a turn for the worst and we needed to get back because she only had minutes left. We jumped in the car and sped back. I was silently praying to myself in the car - asking God not to take her please... We got to a part of the Main St that intercepted a street called Garden Road, and all of a sudden I stopped praying, looked up in the sky and heard the voice tell me "She's gone." I never forgot this. I also never spoke of it again for years, but little incidents like this continued to happen regularly.

About 3 years later an aunt if mine fell ill. She had a heart attack and was in critical condition. Everyone was worried about her. My mother was sitting in the kitchen crying - worried about her aunt, and even though I had a strained relationship with her I decided to console her. I sat down next to her and said "Mom, don't worry she is going to be ok this time. She is going to recover completely and come home, but in a few more years she will get sick again, but right now she is fine" My mother was so shocked that she stopped crying and asked me "Why do you think that" I told her that I didn't know how I knew - but I just did... She looked at me and said "you are truly your father's daughter" she then told me the story of my father and my cousin, and the things he "knew" over the years. She told me I should talk to him. So I did. I entered the conversation a few moments later and told him the same thing I had told my mother about my aunt. I told him that I don't know how I knew, I just did... He looked up at me and said "I know you do. Just like you knew the night your grandmother died." I was shocked. I asked him how he knew about that. He answered "Because looking at you is how I knew she was gone. I will never forget the look in your eyes when we passed Garden Road that night" I was floored...

Since that night these feelings haven't stopped. Sometimes they are direct and sometimes they are not. The night that my house was broken into I was feeling uneasy all day. While sitting on the couch doing my homework that night I was hit with the voice in the form of a question "if someone were to walk through that door right now, what would you do? Where would you go?" I was so preoccupied with this question that I got up to double check the lock... this is how I know that the man who entered my house did it deliberately. He had to pick the lock in order to get in. Just a month ago I heard a voice in my head tell me that I would be hit on my Scooter sometime soon. I thought I had paid my due when I slipped on some oil in the street and went down in traffic, but the feeling didn't go away until 2 weeks later when a car side swiped me while making a left turn from the right hand lane. But how could I have known that?

I have tried to reason away these feelings and thoughts. I have tried to dismiss them. I have tried to discredit them. It makes me think I'm nuts sometimes for thinking these things, and giving merit to some crazy hunch. But what if it is more??? I have said before in a previous blog that I believe that there are many levels on the scale of consciousness between being awake and being dead. What if some of us are just fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to get a glimpse into these? I mean we have all heard the stories - of people who regularly dream of the future, or who have dejavoo. I'm not sure if it is fate, coincidence, a spirit, or even God himself telling me these things, all I know is that they have touched my life and peaked my curiosity enough to write about them, and ask questions of others who have had similar experiences. In a world full of so many tangible matters and issues that can be defined as only right or wrong, it makes me feel good to be reminded that there are somethings that we just aren't meant to have answers to. In this crazy busy life, there are still things that open our eyes to the beauty of possibility. They happen for a reason - to teach us a lesson, or to help someone who needs us. My personal experiences have brought me so much closer to my father - who I wasn't really close to at all before we talked, and I consider this relationship a blessing everyday. I have to say, no matter where these feelings or voices come from, I hope they never stop.

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...