Higher Power

I have a bone to pick and it's with the big man upstairs. Or with nature... maybe science. It would seem one of these three has an affinity with taking my loved ones from me. It's been a rough year, no doubt. This would be expected when the majority of your family is over the age of 70. However, the family has been thrown through loops. First my Grandmother is dying. Then she's miraculously recovering and is better than ever. Then my Great Aunt is dying. And then she's fine. And then my Uncle, only in his 50s, out of nowhere, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, stage 4.

This of course was heartbreaking. One of the kindest, most intelligent, and logical men I have ever known, was being ripped from my family, too quickly, yet far too slowly, in the most painful of ways. In his last days we sat with him while he read us the the same children's books he read to me and his daughters as kids. We worked on puzzles together. He told us how much he loved us. He told me how proud of me he was and to follow my dream of film. And then he was taken from us. And it was awful. And the sadness and breakdowns and random bought of tears consumed months.

And then things started to go back to normal. And then they didn't.

My Grandmother, the woman that would buckle my seatbelt for me when I was little, and listened to Brittany Spears and Backstreet Boys and whatever else was on channel 95.5 at her own accord, who would sing "I love you a bushel and a peck" to me, and never ran out of hugs or kisses, she is sick. And sick is putting it too lightly, as she is, in fact, dying, as we all are. She isn't dying today, or at this moment, or tomorrow even, but she is dying. And it's so uncertain, and it's the New Year, and it's supposed to be a happy time but it's not. I feel sad. I feel very sad and I say I'm tired but I'm sad.

So here's my bone for whoever is in control, stealing my loved ones. Stop. Stop stealing our happiness, and our joy and the days of celebration. Let us be. Let us live, and do so happily. I think I'm an averagely intelligent person, but whoever you are, you're confusing me and I hate it.

I hate the lack of control, and the sadness, and the tears, and knowing that when I wake up tomorrow I better opt for the waterproof mascara instead of the normal goop cause who knows what the day will bring.

So stop it. Please.

Cheers :D

Realistically, I'm in LA over break, alone for the most part. Virtually, I'm in good company. I've got butterflies in my stomach. Keep on keeping on.

Letter 1

To my Dearest,

Today is Christmas. I'd like to think that wherever you are snow is floating, petrified and slow, through the air. Here it just rains. As per every Christmas the family relaxed today. I spent the afternoon watching movies and reflecting on the years past. These two activities hardly go together as I tend to get so wrapped up in thought that the movies become a soundtrack to my rapid-working mind.

We attempted our tradition of Chinese Food for Christmas Dinner, however Bamboo was 2 hours late on our reservation. We ended up dining at Jerry's, eating food all too familiar. It was quite lovely though. Brian's old friend, Matt, and another buddy joined the family. They'll be off to Mexico in two day's time for Holiday.

I'm sure Mexico is quite nice this time of year.

Cheers, love, and kisses,

Your Dearest

Hubert Selby Jr.

Hubert Selby Jr. developed his writing craft in his 40s after a life of drug and alcohol addiction. He would write letters every day to his friends. Soon he began to write short stories and novels. This is the route I've decided to take. Not the alcohol and drug addiction route. I'm going to write letters. If I can't tell someone about my day, life, year, thoughts, hopes, or dreams, how will I ever perfect my ability to create characters that have all of those elements?

Tomorrow I write letters.

"Odd Numbers"

That drunken smile did nothing for me
I sit on my windowsill at night replaying your laugh in my head
I notice the details, not the obvious ones like she does
The freckle on your left cheek closer to your bottom lip than your top lip
How many of your eyelashes face up; how many face down
The imperfect blemish above your right eyebrow
That’s what we are, imperfect
Imperfect like your face, your nose, your freckles, your eyelashes
They always come out in odd numbers, the ones facing up and the ones facing down
Your nails are uneven, splitting, like the ends of your hair
She sees your beautiful blue eyes, and your soft, supple lips
She notices your dark, dessert skin and your well-parted hair
She chose you like the spider chose its prey
As for me, all I can do, is sit here imagining what no one else would think to look for
Is this what I chose for myself, a lifetime of windowsills and imperfect eyelashes
No, you chose it for me, when you looked deep into my eyes and whispered those words
Your eyelashes come out in odd numbers, the ones facing up, the ones facing down
Then you kissed them, sentencing me to a world of dark, bleak, despairing windowsills

I've become that flighty girl

There is a pattern that occurs in my life when I travel that I think says a lot about me. When I'm in LA I want to be back in East Lansing. When I'm in East Lansing, I want to be in LA.

That saying, you know, "The grass is always greener on the other side." Yeah. I feel it. The thing is I don't think I'd feel this way if I knew more people in LA. I can count on one hand the amount of friends I have here, however unlike in Michigan, those include the people that I wouldn't hang out with all the time. I love them all, but some people I just don't know well enough to say "lets go to coffee," or "lets hit up a movie," at the drop of a hat.

Or, quite the contrary, it could simply mean I'm the kind of girl who doesn't know what I want until I have it, and then I don't want it anymore. I feel like that sentence could have came out of an Audrey Hepburn movie or an Elaine Dundy novel, and normally I'd love to emulate one of those characters, but for now it bothers me. I don't want to be the flighty girl in the movies or novels. I want to be strong. I want to know what I want. I miss the strength I had going into University. I used to have this sense of being that no matter what, I was strong and I didn't need people, I could be okay on my own, but with all the changes that have happened over the last 4 years that has gone away, and I'm left with a sense of vulnerability that I can't shake for the life of me.

I just don't know what I need to do to get that strength back. Suggestions?

Labels

Sometimes I think about all of the titles we give for people based on their beliefs. Feminist, Liberal, Conservative, Egalitarian, Libertarian, Empathetic, etc. But when I think about all of the beliefs I possess and all of the things I'm still unsure of I find it hard to ever pick a label.

For instance, I feel strongly about breaking the stereotypes of women in order to progress the idea of equality between the sexes. But at the same time, staunch feminists would probably look at me and laugh. I frequently visit Jezebel.com, a feminist blog. Today they had a post dedicated to "Bridalplasty" a new reality tv show where the winner gets free plastic surgery before their wedding. For the most part Jezebel puts down the idea of the show, but between the lines they obviously have strong feelings about the idea of plastic surgery in general.

I've had a nose job. I got it the summer after my senior year of high school before going to college. As a kid I was made fun of constantly for the size of my nose and I was always so self-conscious about it. I mean, I was getting made fun of for something I had absolute no control over. I was born that way, if I had the option I obviously wouldn't have 'given' myself a big nose at birth. So, I got the surgery and guess what? My self-confidence was restored and I felt great. At the same time, I finally graduated high school, was never going to see those mean people ever again if I didn't have to, and was growing up. So was my confidence attributed to the surgery or to the fact that I was growing into myself and finally given the chance to start fresh? I'll never know, but I'd like to think the surgery opened my eyes to the fact that I could start fresh and be whoever I wanted, so a little bit of both.

It's hard for me to identify myself as a feminist while, at the same time, knowing that others would never see me as one. But the thing is, I don't get my hair done, and I didn't have the surgery in order to be better for those around me, but instead I do this stuff for myself.

I think it's a common misconception that if you spend a half hour putting make up on, an hour doing your hair, and you have plastic surgery, that you automatically are a 'fake' person, or that you're propelling the image that society wants you to be. Because maybe sometimes this is the case, but for me, these things aren't for other people. They're for me. They make me feel good.

In my eyes the feminist movement is about having the confidence to be a great woman, as well as an equal. So in reality, what does it matter where that confidence comes from?

If I could go back I would still have gotten a nose job. It doesn't make me any less 'me'. In fact, I think it helped me discover that I was a 'me', and not just an open target for mean people.

I think people get so caught up in labels that they lose sight of the fact that no one can fit into a cookie-cutter ideal. Everyone's views, opinions, actions, etc. will vary. Call it contradictory or hypocritical, but I'd rather call it reality.

My Hair

Sometimes when I'm really in a funk and I can't seem to get myself out of it there's only one thing that cheers me up.

Getting my hair done.

I don't go on large spending sprees because, lets be honest, I really have nothing to spend. When I do have money, however, I love going to my Aveda salon and getting pampered. I hate shopping for clothes because guess what! People grow out of clothes, and some days they just don't look how you want them to. But when you get your hair done, it always looks good. It always feels good. And it leaves you feeling like something finally changed in your life.

This last visit? Purple and blonde streaks, as well as a trim.

Pictures to come.

Rise and Grind

I can't believe I'm awake right now.

For starters, I worked on homework all day yesterday because I let myself fall behind due to my Thanksgiving holiday. Around 8 PM last night I ate a fantastic spaghetti meal with my parents and then it was off to LAX to battle the crowds, the TSA groping, and my 75 minute flight delay.

The crowds weren't as bad as I thought they would be, however I did wait the longest I've probably ever waited to check-in. Once I got through that I dropped my bag at the TSA X-Ray and off I went. I've traveled so much the past two years that I've gotten security down to a science. For example, before I even enter security I strip down. The belt goes in the backpack, all scarves, hats, coats and sweaters are removed, and I'm left in jeans that are falling down and a ratty old tank top that I think I've worn to every airport I've gone to in the past 2 years. I remove my laptop from its case and (very carefully) place it on top in my backpack.

Off to the security line where I give the security man or woman my ID and boarding pass, plus a friendly smile.

I always make sure to stand in the metal detector line instead of the x-ray machine line. This time, regardless, I got felt up a little by a frisky TSA agent, but it wasn't as bad as people make it out to be.

I do the same thing every time I get through security. I re-dress, go straight to my gate, sit down for literally 2 minutes, look at my phone, get my bearings, then off I go to the nearest airport bar for a much needed night cap.

My flight was an hour and 15 minutes late, which was definitely an annoyance- an hour taken out of my sleep time.

I got on the plane at 11:00 pm pacific time and arrived in Detroit at 6:30 am eastern standard time. I got lucky and my bag was second off the conveyer belt, grabbed it, and headed for the Michigan Flyer bus that would transport me to East Lansing to start my day- that's right, START my day!

I got to East Lansing at 9:20 am, went home, did an hours worth of homework due in my first class, and then was straight off to class at 11:30 am. Skipped my second class in order to do another homework assignment due at 2 pm.

I probably should have napped after this but since I haven't spent quality time with my roommates since before the holiday we all decided to hang out and rock out! That's right, embarrassing youtube video to follow, I'm sure.

5:05 pm. I'm running on maybe 3 hours of sleep. Not real sleep, but plane sleep- which was hard to even achieve that since I was distracted by my lack of leg room, and the strange smell of curry that surrounded me from my neighbors.

I've went to my favorite coffee shop to study, my favorite bar for a drink, and it's 10:25 pm and I'm still awake!!!!

All and all though- this week was fantastic, and today was great, minus the sleepiness.

Time for rest before another Rise and Grind.

Contentment

I think I'm doing okay. I want to throw up, but this is normal after you eat the amount of Thanksgiving food that I consumed tonight.

But in all honesty, I think I'm okay. At least, I think I'm going to be okay. This semester... these last four years, have been hard. I've gone through a lot of changes both physical, mental, and emotional.

I've put my happiness so much on other people but I finally think I can be happy for myself... at least a little bit.

If I'm not okay now.. I'm going to be okay, and that's all that matters right now.

Turkey Day

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. Up until last year we would make Thanksgiving Dinner at the house I grew up in for 30 of my closest family members annually. I would wake up and run down the stairs, the dining room table would be set with my mother's nice table cloth and fine China dishes. The kitchen would already smell like turkey and we'd watch the parade as we prepared my great grandmother's chestnut stuffing recipe. It was fantastic.

Last year we made Thanksgiving in LA. It was small- me, Mom, Dad, their friend Michael, and my friend and her boyfriend. It was still really nice.

This year we aren't making Thanksgiving dinner. We're going to my brother's girlfriend's family's house for dinner. They are cooking.

It wouldn't have felt right if we didn't cook or bake something, so I baked some cookies to bring over.

I thought that when my parents moved and Thanksgiving changed I'd be devastated since it is my favorite holiday, after all. In all honesty, though, I'm not. It still feels just as special because I go the longest between when school starts and I come to LA for Thanksgiving without seeing my parents. We're super close and it just feels special because I so look forward to spending time with them.

That's what Thanksgiving is about, anyways. It's about being grateful for the friends and family you have and spending time with them.

I'm so thankful for my friends and family, the blessings that have come my way this year, and the blessings in disguise that I have yet to be able to appreciate.

God Bless.

Facebook No More

I've decided to deactivate my facebook. I think they call it "deactivation" instead of deleting because it sounds so scary. It makes it sound like you're diffusing a bomb. Dangerous.

The thing about social networking sites like Facebook is they feed to the child inside of us. The one that fell in love with Disney movies that wishes they could live in a little fantasy world. Facebook allows us to be connected to even those who we could never really be connected with in real life. It lets us play out our fantasies of knowing people we probably shouldn't know. We can look at their pictures when we probably shouldn't hold our breath. It lets us stalk people that it didn't work out with, or those who will never be our friends in real life.

It's really rather sad when you think about it, but I've decided I needed to go old school for a while. When you want to get over someone the last thing you need is their status updates and music video posts littering your news feed. You need to put everything about them in a metaphorical box and shove it in your metaphorical closet, and move on.

So, for a while at least, I'm logging off. Maybe I'll be back after the holidays, or, maybe I'll like being away from Facebook so much that I'll never turn back. Whichever is welcome.

I do still think it's important to blog though. It's a helpful tool when it comes to organizing your thoughts.

The Song

I mentioned in my last post that my nanny would play, on repeat, a song for me in her car that I loved but couldn't remember what it was... I found it.

Smiley by The Smashing Pumpkins

Smiley, where have you been?
Smiley, it's such a sin to say
You'll dream your life away

No one met him, couldn't make it on a bended knee
All his friends were simple prophets only if he please
And he'll wait on his knee

Smiley, where have you been?
Smiley, it's such a sin to say
You'll dream your life away

Your love won't change
Come back to stay
Smiley Smiley Smiley Smiley
Smiley Smiley Smiley Smiley

And you-
if I'm smilin'
Then I'm tryin'
'cause I'm smilin'

My Nanny

When I was a little girl I had a nanny. I was probably about 4 or 5 years old and she was in her 20s. I thought she was awesome. She always had different colors in her hair, whether it be 2 toned blonde and brown, blue, or green. Her nose was pierced, she was tattooed, and she had a little blue dot above her upper lip that reminded me of a punk-rock Marilyn Monroe.

She drove a beater of a car and it didn't even have a CD player, just a tape deck. Her favorite bands were The Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, and The Offspring. She would put on songs and we would jam in her car while she took me places. There was one song, I can't remember which, that I fell in love with. I would make her play it on repeat every time we were in the car.

Once she took me to the Humane Society to look at dogs. There was a 3 year old black lab that was just brought in and we fell in love with it. My nanny took that dog home that day and named it Roo. It was adorable and I remember playing with it in my backyard in the mud.

As I grew up and no longer needed a Nanny, Sue fell out of my life. I saw her a couple more times growing up, maybe when I was 12 or 13, maybe 14. She was married with two adorable twins that had autism. She was still tattooed but her hair was one color and she was an adult.

As a kid I never looked at Sue like a "bad-girl". She wasn't "punk-rock" to me or "wild". I had no labels for her except that she was my nanny and my friend.

What makes me think of all this is the fact that time and time again I find myself attracted to the stereotype of these kind of people. Mostly I find myself attracted to the 'bad-boy'. I wonder if my relationship and memories of Sue subconsciously cater to my attraction to this type of person. I wonder how strong my idea of having fun and feeling safe with Sue is attributed to others in the same schema.

I wonder how much influence childhood relationships have on the relationships you make as an adult.

We All Make Mistakes- Mine Are Just Dangerous

We all make mistakes in life. I know this. But when it gets to a certain point, where you're making poor life decisions, one, after another, after another, you start to think to yourself, when are the consequences going to set in?

That point was today. I was in a coffee shop- my favorite, in fact, and I was listening to Pandora, reflecting on this semester. Every decision I've made regarding relationships have done nothing but provide me with consequences, and the ones that I haven't had consequences for yet, I'm sure are just lurking around the corner.

When a girl gets her heart broken, she normally does this thing where she decides to write off men. However, when I normally do this, the second I meet someone, that decision is called off. Today though, I had a moment where I realized that not only did my decisions have consequences, but I was, in fact, putting myself in danger.. of so many different things.

This was when I knew that the decision to write off men was real this time. If not for the sole reason that I've lost control over who I surround myself with to the point that I don't want to be surrounded by anyone. Not for a while, at least.

My Brain Won't Stop

I'm in a funk. Although, it seems so trivial to say because in retrospect I think I'm always in a funk. It's the consequence of not really knowing who you are.

When I feel like this my relationships suffer. I can't properly navigate them in ways that will truly make me happy or successful because I don't know myself well enough to know what makes me happy and successful.

Sometimes I'm impulsive. I get excited about something and just go for it. It's dangerous not because it's unpredictable but because my impulsiveness is so calculating. Sometimes I think people could just see right through me and know every calculation I make that goes into my 'impulsive' choices. I don't want them to know what I'm doing but do they?

The things I want aren't necessarily the things that are going to make me really happy but there's something addictive about the rush you get from the things that you know aren't good for you. From the people you know you aren't supposed to be with.

I'm a work in progress. We all are. It's just so much harder to know what you do is wrong and then try to correct it than to just do something wrong and find out later.

It takes a toll.

Homesick

I'm rather homesick this weekend. It's been about a month since I've last seen my Mom and longer since I've last seen my Dad. I grew up very close to my parents. I was never a super independent person and I frequently leaned on my parents for emotional support.

Between tailgate and seeing my Aunt and Cousins, I realized how much I miss my parents being only an hour away. Their move opened my eyes to how much I miss having that emotional support so readily available.

Of course, it's worse when there are things going 'wrong' in my life; things that bother me, people that hurt my feelings. Sometimes I just want to be alone, and sometimes that same comfort hurts the most.

The Queen of Micro Relationships

Welp. It's settled. I'm the queen of micro relationships.

For those of you who don't know what that is, it's basically a romantic relationship that takes place over a very short period of time yet has all of the elements of meeting, flirting, dating, sexing, and breaking up.

It seems I attract these. I don't know what it is about me that I need to change, but I'm getting kind of frustrated with them. They feel nice, and then they are done, and then it sucks.

You'd think that by being hurt so much my emotional wall would be up and I wouldn't be so trusting, but it would seem the exact opposite is true. I'm too fucking trusting.

I let people in, I like being held, I like being liked. And then I crash and burn.

Perhaps I need to try and take a break from any kind of attempts at relationships, micro or not, for the time being.

A Tryer's Guide to Moving Forward

As noted in my first post, fear is one of the strongest emotions we, as human beings, experience. It's primal. It's hard-wired into us. I've been struggling with a lot of fear these past four years.

I'll be graduating in May- this itself is a cause for fear, however it's also a cause for something else. It's a cause for the realization that now more than ever is the best time to push past fear and take control of the things that in the past scared me.

Steps I've Personally Taken Towards Canceling out Fear:

1. Making those annoying phone calls to schedule doctors appointments. Up until this year my Mother has scheduled all of my appointments because I suffer from a mild case of Communication Apprehension when it comes to making phone calls to people I don't know personally.

2. Bettering my interpersonal communication skills. This affects many parts of my life, how I interact with my family, friends, roommates, employers, and coworkers. Improvement of these skills has proven to only turn up positive results.

3. Allowing myself to fall for the 'nice guy' for the first time... well, ever. Giving him a chance alone was scary as hell for me- god forbid a guy treats me right.

4. Allowing myself to be vulnerable to the fact that even the nice guys can turn out to have asshole tendencies or maybe even be secret assholes. Hell, the only way to find out is to be aware of the possibility and to just jump!

5. Better manage my money. Money is a big factor in my fears because it's always been a front-runner in the issues I have with my parents. It's still a work in progress, I'm not quite there, but bettering my money management skills will decrease my dependency on my parents thus cutting out the confrontation that causes me fear: asking them for money.

6. Getting a check-up, tested, blood work, physical, etc. I've been super sick for a couple of months and I had no idea what was going on and still don't have all of the answers. By being proactive about it unlike my past, I will soon have answers that can either put my mind at ease or at least let me finally resolve whatever it is causing my illness(es).


I still have a long way to go- there are many fears that I have suppressed and saved for a rainy day. Those will be addressed when they decide to bubble up enough.

In the mean time- I'm a work in progress.

So much to fear.

There is a lot going on in this life. Knowledge, relationships, love, hate, all sorts of feelings, and even death. There have been many times in the many stages of my life where I thought I had it down. I really thought I knew the answers and I was doing good. Usually this mindset occurs right before everything goes to shit.

I've come to this point. I wouldn't exactly say that everything has gone to shit, however I would say that I'm making all of these turns in my life and with each one I find myself more lost than the last.

A lot of the things that scare me I have been through before. I've had all of these changes occur in various forms previously in my life. So why is it that I'm so terrified again?

I've graduated before. I've started over before. I've crushed on the wrong people. I've experienced the death of loved ones. I've done all of this but as I come across these situations again its as if they are brand new.

Over the summer when I was in LA, when I got scared and felt like I couldn't go on I would go into my small walk-in closet, close the door, turn of the lights, and cry in a little ball. I would do this, sometimes for hours at a time, and at the end of the episode I'd be so exhausted that i'd have no more energy to be scared.

Too bad my new home has no closet.