"Take Time to Realize.."

Slow down, lay down, sit still, turn off the lights, silence the phone and play that music. Exhausted. I lay here in my bed and begin to let the music sway my mind and thoughts into a blur. It feels as if I have not slowed down in a few weeks. Have not had the time to fully collect myself and regain strength to keep going, yet somehow I find myself continuing to move and step through each day. Life is good. Don't allow my complaints of exhaustion let you think otherwise, because this extreme weight upon my eyes is worth it. Every late night, every early morning, every sleepless moments, were worth this weight. 

Many things have happened these past few weeks that have changed my views, arisen thoughts and feelings I thought I was over and allowed me to be on a sea-saw of contradicting feelings. 

Recently I have been contemplating how much each individual fools themselves. Fools themselves into believing they're happy, fooling themselves into believing a piece of chocolate cake is fine 3 times a week, fooling themselves into believing that drinking every night will not catch up with them, fooling themselves into believing that they look good in jeans that are just way too tight.  However, it hasn't been these indifferent ideas that have caught my mind, it has been this idea that we fool ourselves into believing we are happy, but why? When I ask myself this I think about relationships I've been in and relationships my friends and family have been in. Why fool ourselves into believing that things are really better then they are, in the end we'll only be hurting and punishing ourselves.

Were they ever happy? Were we ever happy? Or were we all just caught up in this routine of pretending and false perceptions? I understand that happiness is not a constant thing, yet comes and goes, which gives us a ground to stand on. Constant happiness would be boring, predicting, a waste. So why waste our time fooling ourselves when we could just drop it all and actually go for the real thing? Is this the real thing? Do I have it all wrong, or am I looking at it in a negative light? When something doesn't work out am I automatically assuming that I was fooling myself? A lot of questions, yes I know, but it's challenging to decipher and it's been on my mind. 

I was driving to work the other morning and found myself caught up in feelings I thought I surpassed. I was dumbfounded and apparently need to take the time to realize that it's not that simple. It still hurts, but I know the choice is mine now and the way it is is the way I choose it to be.  I haven't figured out if it's better for me to stay constantly busy or to just slow down and breath it all in. I guess I do both and intertwine the two.

I don't understand where it all goes, the love. How can two people, or even one for that matter, tell another they love them and then so quickly turn their back. It's not just me, it's in any relationship. Friendship, lovers, family. One wrong move, or one action not taken and that's it, it's snatched away and you're left standing there without your breath. You stand there suffocating as you watch the other walk away when you just can't seem to move. Where do you put it? The love, the feelings, the emotions, the memories, where does it all go? After it all, how can any person so quickly turn around, turn their back and just walk away? I guess it becomes a matter of themselves, and what they believe is best for themselves and what they need, we are only what we have. 

Rambling, I know, I'm exhausted. 

Where I be, I am

Another moment, another day and another night goes by that I contemplate blogging. That I find myself fighting the urge to write down and face the things that I have pushed away. As I re-read what I write and think about the things that are truly on my mind, I find it hard to address them. 

Summer days have taken over life and the carelessness and freedom has become my way of living. It's great, it's nice, it's everything I could ask for right now. I don't think about the future or the past that has shaped me, I am every bit in this moment as the second hand on any clock. It's simple really, to just go with it. To make a decision in a split second, to change my plans at the drop of an idea, to switch my step to avoid a fall. I'm happy. Things are hard, things are easy, things are everything that they are suppose to be. 

I lay here on my own couch, my own purchase, in my own living room and it feels nice. It feels good to have a fresh start, to have a new life and to once again, begin. A clean slate, to make anything everything I want it to be. I've changed my perception about this place and this situation I find myself in. It feels good to know that although I may be alone, and always have been alone, I have many people to surround myself with. 

It feels good to be. It feels good to be here. It feels good to be alone. And it feels good to know that I can start over wherever I go. 

Inseparable Moments

"Innocence don't let me go"

Another day at work, a few hours to relax at the bar with some wine and my book and I am now here, at my desk allowing my thoughts and words to interrupt the packing that will eventually lead to my return home. 

As I laid articles of clothes, sheets, pillow covers, towels, and numerous of other things into a suitcase I began to find my thoughts trailing to a place that has left me feeling uncertain about my choice I have made. What if I am making the wrong decision? Am I taking a step back? Am I failing by going back home? Will things be the same? I began to question everything I was choosing until I laid down on my bed and allowed the music to just engross my mind. I called Andy. I haven't spoken to anyone really about my thoughts and feelings about moving, about leaving, about again living at home. Have I not made the effort to explain and tell people how I've been feeling or have people been unavailable? Whatever the case, I have found myself here, feeling this emotion as often as I breath.

I called Andy. I needed to spill my guts. Let it out. Cry out to someone that would understand, that would take the time to hear my worries and every concern that has enveloped my mind ever since this reality has begun creeping closer and closer. 

Each time I have opened up a suit case or pulled the cap off of a tub to fill with possessions that I have collected over the years, I have begun to feel more and more alone. I know that is all we ever are in this world, in the end we are always alone. Alone with ourselves, alone with our own thoughts, and merely surrounded by the people that pass through life. 

As Andy spoke to me and tried to put things into perspective for me, to try and help me look at the things that my tears were blurring, I began to think about everything I had packed, all the empty hangers that currently hang in my closet. It's not about the shirt I wore that one time I kissed him, the towel that felt best against my sunburned back, the journal that contains the contents and details of my life for the past four years, the socks, the shirts, the jeans, the dresses, the coats, the vests, the jewelry, the books and everything else that I have packed up. It is not about the papers that I wrote that had an A+, the videos that I create in my production courses or the photos that I have taken and framed. Whether I packed everything I had or not, it would not matter. Everything that I pack would not make a difference because everything I have that I will ever need, that I have learned, loved and cherished from these past four years are inside me, inseparable from me. They will forever be embedded in me. These things that I pack are merely just "paper and cloth" but in the end, what is their true significance? They are only items.

Writing truly makes me feel better. It allows time for my face to dry from my own tears and just a chance to write, to let it out. Ahh I feel a little better. Alright, so I will now go back to packing. I will let it be what it simply is, putting cloth and paper into a carrying case and will continue on with my night, because in 6 months, this too will have passed.

Everything.

So I sit here in my bed on June 5th, having to look at my phone because I have become lost in the summer days. Here I lay half way between drunk and sober and all I can think about and day dream about are my friends around the world that mean the world to me. Lindsay, Megan, Erin, Whitney, Troy and Scotty. My Europe friends that unwillingly and unknowingly changed my life forever. 

Lindsay, one of my roommates from Rome, who grew up in New Jersey came to visit Angela and I for a few days. With the spontaneity of our decision and quick plan to see each other again I was overwhelmed with excitement and happiness. Ang and I went to South Station in Boston to meet her, track 5 she said as I called her from the escalator of the T. We went outside and say her figure walk in through the sliding doors. I know it sounds so fairy tale like, but there she was, like a long lost friend that I hadn't seen in years. I wanted to cry, I wanted to jump up and down and I did, I cried inside for all the months I have missed her and everyone of my roommates. There she was, there we were, in the exact same place where we left off  - happiness. 

The past two days have been great. A time to catch up and once again enjoy each other's company. It wasn't until tonight, again our last night until she departs together, that we started revisiting the memories and adventures and laughs and cries we went through together. The little things we took for granted. The attempts at first unlocking our door, the closterphobic elevator, the first nights of eating together on our balcony, greeting Scotty and Troy at the door with appetizers. Every little moment that seemed so indifferent have suddenly come back to life. Tonight, sitting on that bar stool as we joked and reminisced about our memories, every little memory that I have thought about, that I have dreamed about, that I have wished for since I have come back were finally revisited. Finally I could talk to someone that knew the exact feeling that I went through. Finally I could talk to someone that knew exactly what we ALL have been going through. The struggle, the passion, the longing, the silents laughs, the random smiles as we all think about the memories we all have shared together.

Finally I have felt the chance to share that with my roommate again, maybe not all, but enough to bring that happiness and freedom back.

It was and has been everything I have ever wanted. 

A Critic We All Are

A seat-less theatre filled with hopeless romantics left hopeful.

I just came home from watching the Sex and the City movie. A movie, or as a friend of mine said, ‘an emotional rollercoaster,’ cliché yes, but also very true.

After every episode of a Sex and the City encounter I find myself contemplating life, love, relationships and what it all is. Carrie once said that she was looking for inconvenient, overwhelming love, are we all looking for this? With defining it as inconvenient and overwhelming, don’t we make it a lot more difficult for ourselves and become much more narrow-minded? I was walking home contemplating my own life, my own city and my own relationships. I thought of the word compassion and how I believe every single person wants it, craves it. Wishes for a compassionate kiss, a compassionate hug, a compassionate handshake, a compassionate look, compassionate sex, a compassionate gesture. What is compassion?

I picture compassion as a deep dark hole. Something that can only be defined as a mystery. An open-ended idea that we allow ourselves to feel, derive and hope for. And once we feel it, that squint in our eyes, make me want to cry compassion, it feels good.

But why should we limit ourselves to looking and finding compassion only in other things, other objects, other people? Do we do this? If we look for it in someone else, then it will leave with that someone else. If we look for it in something else, then it will leave with that something else.

I think about my love letter I would write to him. My Mr. Big. My love. And in the days that have led me here so many thoughts come to mind, so many words and so many memories, but most of all joy and compassion come to my heart. The squint in my eyes, want to make me cry compassion. It’s not because I miss him, or because we have not talked in a while, it’s because I love him. The thought of him makes me light headed, the thought of loving him makes me weak, the thought of losing him makes me queasy.

I felt for Carrie when Mr. Big called the night before the wedding and she heard the doubt in his voice. I’ve been there and I’m sure most men and women have been there. Not necessarily on the day before their wedding, but I am sure that any person in a relationship has heard that doubt in their significant others voice. It makes my hands start to shake. It makes my whole body start to shake.

What are we willing to do for the ones we love. 

I sit at my desk. Another month is this apartment, another month in this room, another month with my best friend, my roommate and another month with my cat. After four years of living in this city, I will move on. I came home tonight thinking that it already does not feel like mine anymore. Maybe it’s because he just left. Maybe it’s because I know he will be living here in my room. Soon to be my old room. I will move out and she will move in.

I am not angry. I am more then happy for her and him. I am sad to be so quickly replaced. Maybe it’s more of an idea that she has planned it out and prepared where I am here, uncertain of so many things.

This too will pass.

I’ve significantly considered going back home to be with him. To start a life with him. But could I be happy there? Would it be the same? Would I find a career to support myself? Is this what I want for me right now? Would making such a big change between us be a mutual thing, or am I alone in this?

As I was walking home tonight surrounded by the usual Friday crowd my thoughts of leaving the city were awakened. I don’t want to leave yet. I’m having too much fun. Maybe I will as this month carries on, or maybe I won’t. Maybe some time at home will help me decide. Maybe some job opportunities will lead me in a whole new direction.

Maybe, maybe right now.

One More Step

So here I am. May 25th waiting for my friend to pick me up to go bbqing and swimming for the night. It will be great to get out of the city but my stupid thoughts won't stop going to him. Maybe I'm over reacting, maybe this is how it always has been, always a step back when things aren't perfect, when things are just a little harder then each of us wants. A step back and a spin and all I get is his back turned to me. The way I see it is when something is going wrong or something isn't as perfect as we would want it to be, it should be talked out, worked out. I feel the worst way is to stop talking. We have hardly talked all weekend and from what I see, he thinks it is 'easier' to deal with it??? Yes this is an absolute bitch blog but whatever. He says I give him attitude so he doesn't talk to me. Doesn't care to ask what's up. Doesn't care to give me an inch of time, just would rather go on with his life and forget about the difficulty that I'm giving him. It's easier that way. Bull shit. 

So what now I think. How does it visually seem so much easier for everyone else. Every couple that surrounds me just makes it look so simple. What is it? I don't get it. 

It is what it is. Us not talking, us fighting.... it all will pass and this too will pass. Things will get better and things will get worse. I can give them the attention I think they deserve or just let everything be what it really is. Indifferent issues in life that seem to distract us from enjoying every step and every breath. 

This too will pass...

Caught

Why must an event, an emotion or some significant thing make us see that we become so caught up in the motion of events that take up each moment of our days and lives?

My grandma had a minor stroke this morning. It's crazy. My mom called me and from the first word she spoke, I instantly knew something wasn't right. In the two seconds that she assured herself that I was somewhere I could listen, horrible thoughts, images and possibilities ran through my mind. My dad, my sister, Kevin, my sister's husband, my grandmas.... every person raced through my head. 

After she told me my mind instantly went into overdrive. I have to call Joey to see if I can use the car, I have to call my internship, I need someone to cover for me tomorrow at work...I need something, something to hold on to, an image of me holding onto something; a metal bar, something to steady me and my thoughts. It was like I couldn't stop looking around but I didn't even know what I was looking for.

It was scary. Ever since I watched my grandpa die of oral cancer when I was a senior in high school, I have felt like the one who has been there to take care of and comfort my grandma, besides my dad. I  feel her and I's relationship has evolved and that I should be there for her. It's this sense of responsibility I hold not only because I love her, but because I love my grandpa. Taking care of her feels good and I want my grandpa to sleep in peace. 

I hate how I can get so caught up in everything and it all just seems so indifferent. I mean here I am, about to graduate from college and I'm worried about getting a new place and finding a job. I'm so caught up in all of these standards that society perceives as important to succeed. Yes, I know we need a job to pay for food and all the necessities, but people just take it to a whole other extreme, and I feel like I get caught up in it. 

We create the pace of life, the pace of our life, we can either continue to run through it or slow down and grab onto the important things or people close to our heart. We can't go through life jumping from place to place or job to job in expectations to somehow reach a higher level of succession. We can't allow society to set the goals for us and define what success is. 

We can't let society set the tempo to the pace we run, all we can do is hold onto the things and people that make the pace feel right.