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.