A Few Times I've Been Around That Track

Ah! I got so off track with life these past couple of weeks. I've had midterms every week since third week and it's been so consuming. I'm glad it's over! One week off and then one more midterm, then finals are just around the corner, then HOME! Woot! I cannot wait until I go home. I'm so excited to see my mom and my brother, Stephanie, Andrew, Amelia, and Ashtyn. Lots of A'sssssss.

I've totally been playing dodgeball. Our team is so bad ass! And I've been getting to know our HA's Michelle and J.R. better. They are so freaking amazing. I love spending Thursday nights with them and the rest of the dodgeball team. Speaking of, Potter was on our team this week and I freaking died. I'm pretty sure he knows me as "that one girl whose really obsessed with me from T-House." Oh well! I've decided he's my new Unattainable Object of Affection because I found out my current, now ex I guess, Unattainable Object of Affection is GAY!! I'm not talking that one specific person, but my cute little half-asian piece of hilarity Jared. He's gay. J.R. double confirmed it by saying "He has a boo!" A BOO! AAAAAH! It was so hard watching him in Foosh; my heart was breaking and aching all over the place. He's beautiful. But now he is SUPER Unattainable Object of Affection, so Potter it is. He's single and straight too, perfectly acceptable to drool over him and his Half Blood Prince of Dodgeball skills.

I saw that particular someone on Thursday. Totally ran into him coming around a corner. I was like REALLY! TODAY OF ALL DAYS! I wasn't wearing any make-up. I hadn't showered. My hair was all up and awful. It was the only day all week I hadn't at least looked presentable because that was the day of my midterm and I had pretty much pulled an all-nighter. Let's add to this equation-- I had just taken a poop and I was holding a HUGE (huge to me, but I guess it was only a medium) and an onion ring. There I was gross and unhealthy in front of Mr. Always Good Looking and Vegetarian Super Health Man. He was like "How are you doing?" And I was like "Not so well. You can tell by my very large soda I shall be running on solely caffeine today." And he made me feel better because he said he had only gotten two hours of sleep and had had a lot of espresso. So I didn't feel so bad for being so gross. But I haven't seen him in weeks and I wish that THAT wasn't the day. Damn it.

What else is going on? I applied to I-House. Woohoo! The whole apartment did. I'm really actually kind of excited about it. I looked more and more into what kind of programs they offer and they seem legit. We're all pretty excited about it, but we're going to have to see what happens.

I haven't ran in a LONG time. Actualy, I ran like... two Mondays ago about two miles around Campus Loop. Not the best idea as I hadn't run for over a week. So it's been about three weeks since I've really ran. I think I'm giving up on the 5k blog... maybe I won't. I need to get back into my groove. Obviously staying up until freaking... all hours of the night isn't good for wanting to ge up early in the morning to do things, so with that little self-guilt trip, I'm going to bed now.

I love you all! Good night, my dearies!

From The Surprisingly Quotable Amy Adams

Thirty was a big deal for me. It was the age where I reevaluated everything - how I approached life and how I thought about myself. When I look at my 20s, or when I look at any period in my life, I think about how much time I've wasted trying to find the right man. It's like, if I could go back and do it again, I would have taken guitar lessons or something. I would have put my energy into something that paid off in the end, instead of trying to improve myself for men. Oh, the time and the energy, trying to impress somebody who was actually a big jerk, you know? But the truth is, once you have a great man in your life, it allows you - or at least for me - to look at yourself and grow as an individual. And gosh, if I had known I was going to find this, my 20s would have been completely different.


I always knew I loved her. Thanks Amy. I'm going to take guitar lessons!

GRATUITOUS AMOUNTS OF GRATITUDE

I want to thank those people who read my work and told me how they felt about it. It means so much to me that I don't know what to say...

Usually, when I sit with a pen in hand or with hands poised above a keyboard, the words come to me. I cannot verbally articulate myself for the life of me, but writing has always been easy-- to bad it's taken me nineteen years to figure that out.

But this time is different. You, the beautiful people out there, have left me speechless, wordless, unable to move my hands across these keys in a way that would truly convey how endlessly thankful I am for your support and love and time. Man, you guys took time to read my simple short stories, even my dilapidated and mostly depressing blog entries, and that means incredible time to me as I know how precious time is.

Thank you for the tears, the texts, the questions, the comments.

You are my world. You are what I live for each and every day.
Thank you for being that.

A Memory in Two Parts, A Work of Good Fiction.

So, for my fiction writing class, we had to write about a childhood memory in completely a child's voice. So, no big, fancy words, no adult perspective. Completely childlike.

And you all know my infantile enthusiasm is unbridled, so this assignment ended up being really easy for me. I knew what memory I wanted to write about right away and as I thought about it, this really cool I guess metaphor came to my mind concerning the blue, yes blue, carpet that we had in the house I first lived in.

This week's assignment was to revisit that memory but now from an adult perspective. Ijust finished writing it. And, I'm not going to lie, although a good portion of everything written is fictional, a lot of the emotion isn't. And this piece has actually been really hard on me. It's very truthful in how I see my relationships and how I see my marriage. It reveals a lot about me that many people don't get to see. IN all honesty, I've only shared it with one person on this Earth and that person in return hurt me quite badly. Safe to say, I'm not looking to share it again for a long time.

But I thought I'd give you a glimpse, let you see something that some will never know resides deep within my heart and affects me daily. Isn't that sad?

Enjoy the following two posts.

Ocean and Sand Castles (Early Memory Part I)

I am floating on the blue carpet as Mommy puts Dexter to sleep. The carpet reminds me of the ocean Mommy and Daddy took me to last summer when it was fire hot outside and Mommy still had Dexter in her tummy. We drove a long, long ways and finally we turned a corner and I saw the big ocean for the first time. This is what the carpet reminded me of.

Mommy holds Dexter and softly lays him down in his crib. I jump up out of my ocean carpet and peek over the railing at him, like I’m playing peek-a-boo. He is already asleep so I say in a very small, inside voice, “Good night, good night, sweet baby brother” and kiss my hand so I can give it to him without waking him up. I reach out and touch his forehead and he wiggles a little bit. I laugh and Mommy shushes me, then pulls me out of the room with her. Mommy goes to the bedroom to do laundry, but I don’t want to go with her.

I go to the living room, swimming through the blue carpet all the way to the sandy kitchen. I get all of my sand toys and start building another sand castle. I can hear Mommy singing like the little mermaids from her bedroom. Daddy smiles at me as he cooks my favorite Saturday night chocolate pancakes.

“How tall is the sand castle today?” he asks.

“I don’t know yet, Daddy. It might all fall down like it did yesterday.”

“Well,” he says as he comes over to me and squats down on his knees, scooping into the ocean carpet, “if you take some of the water and make that sand wet, it'll help it stick together.”

I know that, but I don’t tell Daddy. I tell him “thank you.”

“Don’t make it higher than your head,” he says. “That’s a sure way for sand castles to fall over.”
I shake my head yes and continue building. He doesn’t know that I can make sand castles as tall as the moon. They go right through the roof. Daddy worries a lot. When we went to the ocean, he told me about the drowning and how the water gets all the way in your breathing until you can’t breathe anymore. But it was ok because I didn’t want to go too far in and all I wanted to do was make sand castles.

As Daddy is putting the plates and cups on the table, Mommy comes out from the bedroom with a pair of underwear in her hand.

“What is this?” Mommy says. I can tell she’s angry. I don’t know why.

“Mommy, it’s underwear,” I say. I get up to go to the table after making sure my sand castle isn’t going to fall. I can tell this one is going to be a big one. I pull out my chair and sit down, waiting for Daddy to serve the pancakes, but Daddy has stopped and is staring at Mommy.

“What is this?” she asks again. And that’s when she did it.

She rushes towards Daddy, knocking over my big sand castle. They start yelling about the underwear. The sand is all over the floor. Mommy pushes Daddy. My sand castle is broken.

“It’s only underwear,” I whisper as I swim away. I’m not getting my pancakes tonight. I hear the crashes start in the kitchen. Dishes are breaking. Their voices are outside voices.

I know what to do. I have done this before. I reach in and carefully pull Dexter out of his crib and go to their bedroom. I set him down on their bed and go back to the door to lock it. I go back to him and lay down next to him, holding him close as he cries.

I tell him about the ocean that he missed while he was in her tummy. I tell him about the blue water and all of the sand. I tell him about the sand castles I made. I tell him about my sand castle I made today. I tell him how she made it all broken. I tell him it’s only underwear. I tell him that this will be over soon like last time.

I tell him this over and over until he is asleep and soon I am too.

She wakes me up and tells me to hurry up and get a jacket. I ask her where we are going. She says she doesn’t know. She picks up Dexter and takes him out of the room. I go to my room and find my jacket. I go out to find her and it’s hard to swim in a jacket. I can see from the living room she is putting Dexter into his car seat. His truck isn’t in the driveway next to hers and I know he is gone gone this time. As I fight to swim to the front door I trip over something she has dropped and fall into the ocean carpet.

I think this is what the drowning is like.

The End of Nuclear Perfection and Sand Castles (Early Memory Part II)

He came in from another late night at work and walked over to me lying on the couch. I curled my legs underneath me so my lap could form a pillow for his head. He laid down.

“I’m sorry I’m late again, honey. This stupid case is keeping us there through all hours of the night.”

Apparently, his law firm was working on some big case involving some multimillion dollar scandal. I mentioned that I thought I would have read about it in the newspaper by now. He said that people have been paid a lot of money to keep it from the public. No one can keep quiet for this long.

“It’s alright. I wish you were here more though. Maybe after this we’ll take a long vacation?”

I leaned down to kiss him when an unfamiliar smell caught my attention. It was perfume.

It was a perfume I never used but knew very well since working at perfume boutique two years ago. It was expensive and sexy, the kind a husband would give to his mistress.

I scratched his neck gently, pretending to give a loving massage while moving his collar around to see if I could find any traces of something that shouldn’t have been there.

A make-up smudge.

I froze.

I was only a little girl when my mom accused my father of cheating. I remember the night clearly. My mom and I had just put Dexter to bed and I had gone out into the living room to make pretend sand castles in the kitchen at the edge where our blue carpet and hardwood floors matched. The ocean meeting the sand.

Mom had gone to put away laundry and my father was making chocolate chip pancakes, my favorite. I haven’t eaten them since. It was a simple, Saturday night, the only night my family was ever all together as Mom usually worked late to support the family. She was gone a lot, but she was doing it to bring in income. My bastard father could never hold down a job, getting fired for showing up drunk or not passing the drug tests.

Apparently, the job searches were actually an affair. My mom found the lacy red panties bunched up in a pair of his pants that she was folding. He never could finish the job completely.

I remember when she rushed him asking him about the underwear and I had no idea what was going on. To me, they were only underwear. Now, they’re the symbol of my family’s downfall, the beginning of a violent divorce to terminate a violent marriage, the ending of my fantasy world of nuclear perfection and sand castles.

It still bothers me that as a six-year-old I knew when my parents fought that I needed to get my brother and I safely into their locked bedroom, that we were in danger inside our own home, that we weren’t safe in the security of our own parents. I cannot count how many nights I went through that routine with Dexter. I would have to wake him up and he would cry and I would cuddle with him on the bed, telling him stories to get him to go to sleep. Sometimes there are nights when he can’t fall asleep, he’ll call me and ask for me to simply talk until he falls asleep. He was one when my parents divorced. He doesn’t know why my voice is soothing to him. I pretend I don’t know either.

When my mom woke us up, she told me to get a jacket and that we were leaving. She didn’t know where. I knew we weren’t coming back. I grabbed this huge, overstuffed jacket that didn’t even fit me and tried to get out to the car. I tripped in the living room on the way out, falling into that deep blue carpet. I remember it was my ocean carpet. I remember finally understanding what the drowning my father had told me about felt like. He warned me about it and then showed me what it was like too.

Before I even got married to Blake, I told him about this. I told him how hard it has been for me to trust men, how I have always gotten hurt by those I bring my walls down enough to love. I told him to truly know me and to truly love me, he would have to break down those years of abandonment that my father left me with. I told him it would be the end of everything if he ever put me through what my father put my mom through.

He told me I was beyond perfection. He told me that he would prove himself to me. He told me I could trust him no matter what. And he held me through those nights where I sobbed, trying to let him in, thinking I was the one who was destroying this relationship with all the shit baggage that ass had left me with. He told me he would never, ever cheat on me.

Tonight happened though the way it did. I quietly twisted his collar around so he could see the make-up for himself. I pushed him off of me and walked to the bed room. I grabbed my jacket and knew I was leaving. I didn’t know where, but I knew I wasn’t coming back.

It Hurts Again

I have way too much stress this quarter.

I couldn't handle it on Saturday. I kind of lost it, in my own, private, indulgent way.

I sat in the shower letting scalding hot water pour down onto me and listened to "The Way She Feels" on repeat for about forty minutes.

It's been enough for me to indulge the want, the desire, to think about it, to acknowledge it, to accept its tormentous and occassional appearances in my life. I scratched at the itch until it went away.

It's been enough for me thus far but I have more years, more decades to live.

Will the itch ever be completely gone? Will I fail at holding myself back?

Whenever this occurs to me, I like to think that I can, that these four years haven't been for nothing, that my God isn't nothing.

And yet I worry that one day my indulgence won't be enough.

And I don't know what I'll do it if it does.

January Books

I am currently in a little friendly competition with Stephanie over who can read the most books (in pages) over the course of the year. I noticed she's keeping track on here and I shall as well at the end of each month so we can compare as to how we are doing.

This month I read--

Splendor by Anna Godbersen
391 pages

The Vampire Diaries:
The Awakening/The Struggle
492 pages

The Vampire Diaries
The Fury/Dark Reunion
520 pages

Anthem
Ayn Rand
90 pages

For a grand total this month (not including the countless textbook chapters and short stories for classes which should count since it's a lot and take up most of my time): 1493 pages

Gooooooo ME!

Speechless

Someone else understands.

The Distance From A To Where You'd B

I've sort of torn myself away from the world of my Redding friends. I pretty much haven't talked to anyone in forever. The past three nights though I've talked to a different person- Steph, Ashtyn, and Andrew. It felt good to hear all of their voices. I've been texting Steph a lot too and it makes me really happy. I miss her a lot, a lot.

It's so funny, thinking how she used to be "the other girl," the one who was dating the boy I liked, the one who intimidated me so. And now I can honestly call her my best friend. Lately, when I text her, I feel really clingy. I am always worried about the status of the relationship. Not really in a bad sense, but I think about other relationships and get scared. I don't really want to lose her. I think about how her and Alyssa aren't talking anymore, how they've been fighting, how they've lost touch since Alyssa moved away- I live 9 hours farther from Steph than Alyssa and I know what losing touch is like as I barely talk to Kelsey anymore and she was an ultimate best friend for such a long time.

Also, Steph is going to move here. I'm so excited about that. Like, to have her here is the most exciting thing to me. I pray to God that she gets accepted to SDSU (and that she likes it so she'll stay), so she can be closer to me. And I was thinking about it and how excited I am, and normally the things in my life that I'm really excited about are the things that never happen. And I got worried last night that even though she's so close, we'd get wrapped up in our own worlds and never see each other. I mean, honestly, Danielle Jenne LIVES ON MY CAMPUS jsut down the freaking street. I haven't seen her all year and texted her only once.

And you know what Steph said to that-- "This is me of whom we speak! We will find time and make it work." That's like... one of the... best things anyone's ever said to me. Like, I'm sure Kelsey has said something like that to me before, but I never could really expect her to follow through on it. When Steph said it, I knew it was true. Our history has backed it up. I mean, this break, even though she had finals and work and was getting sick, she made so much time to see me. If I wasn't home, I was at Steph's.

And I didn't have this intention when writing tonight. I really had no direction except knowing I wanted to write, to share something with this small world that reads my words. But I'm glad I did.

Steph, you're my best friend. And you have no idea how happy I am about that. I'm excited to see where life takes us, knowing that you'll be there to share it with me.
I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE YOU!!!!!

Can You See It Now?

These walls that they put up to hold us back fell down / It's a revolution / Throw your hands up 'cause we never gave in / We'll sing Hallelujah!

Change.

It's what I am doing this year. I'm off to a very good start. Tonight for sure is going to mess it up, but it's a special occassion and I'll get myself back on track because I understand it's only a special occassion.

I've been going to bed early- in bed by 10 o'clock to write in my Jesus Journal and read a chapter in a book, then falling asleep by 11. I try and wake-up around 730 so I can get ready before watching Say Yes to the Dress and then depending on whether or not I have class at 930, I am going to the gym or finding some other time to go because I am training for a 5k. (If you want to read about my progress for the 5k, check out my other blog "Journey To The 5k.")

I'm feeling really good. I really like this. I wish I could be doing more homework so I can really get a feel for how I do once I have more obligations to school, but my books haven't come in yet. Hopefully they'll be here before Friday so I can catch up over the weekend.

I'm really excited for this year. I feel this is something I can do. I feel these are changes I can keep. And even in going to bed early, I'm still finding enough time for myself, although that will probably decrease over the quarter as I start to get more homework and have to study for tests and whatnot. But I'm praying God will provide me with time still.

I did really well financially last quarter although I was really worried towards the end there, but I have a lot of money saved for my trip this summer to Boston and New York and I have a lot of money this quarter. I am hoping I'll be really good about spending and not spend it all. I'm going to try and live off of 40$ a week, especially since I can get a lot of me food through dining dollars and I'm not even counting that. If I live off 40$ a week, besides maybe a few very special activites, it means I'll only be spending roughly 500$ a quarter which is about a third of the money I get. So, that is another one of my goals.

I really enjoy writing in my Jesus Journal. I usually take the first paragraph just to thank God for everything and it really makes me happy, thinking about all the good things he's done for me that day. It puts a smile on my face no matter how the day really went. I also made four resolutions with Him this year, which are pretty much my resolutions for the year. I want to do things for Him. Like this running thing, instead of saying I want to get in shape, making it a very "me" resolution and not really giving me any sort of goal, I am trying to treat the body He blessed me with better. I want to love the body He gave me, not hate it or mistreat it. I want to learn to appreciate all it does for me and how it truly is a beautiful thing, no matter what anyone says the standard of beauty is. My others are like that too. I want to spend more time with Him and I'm starting that by wiritng every night. Soon I am hoping to include more Bible time, since I'm really bad at that, or random moments of worship or prayer or just more conciousness of Him as I go through my day. I want to spend Sundays as a day of rest. So I cannot do homework or anything like that, but I can enjoy time with Him and time in my city or just with friends or in books or in writing. But nothing stressful. And also, go to church Sundays. And my other one is just to use the things He has blessed me with wiser--time, money, school, family, friends, words, gifts, possessions, city, classes. Pretty much these four resolutions are completely life changing for me and I want to do my best with them.

I think I might write them down each day or go back to them each day and see how I've messed up or done well to keep them in my mind. I mean, I feel like I've already forgotten them. If you could just pray for me on these four things and for my family's financial situation, I would really appreciate it.

Good luck with all your New Resolutions. Leave me comments about what they are so I can pray for you too or encourage you throughout the year!

Interpreter of Maladies (Old but Now Posting)

I read this book for Asian lierature, Interpreter of Maladies, and many of the stories in it had problematic marriages as a big source of conflict. It seemed as if all the marriages that blossomed because two people were in love with each other were now crumbling because they were now "out of love." The one marriage that ended up working was the one that had been arranged in India while the man lived in the United States.



Is that what I am to look forward to if I marry the person I am passionate for? Eventually falling out of love with my husband? From expereience, I know you can move forward from love. Does that mean I should settle for someone I am simply compatible with, someone I can learn to love and respect, but never truly feel passionate for?



The book really resonated a sadness within me.



But I will refuse to let it get me down. I know that I can be in a marriage that passion lasts in. It doesn't have to be lifeless or loveless. It can work.

At least, I hope so.

Enchanted.

Because the last post was depressing.