I feel sorry that other people know my family so much better than I do. I know that all I would really have to do is be close to them in order to be closer to them, yet I find that so difficult to manage. I wish we had never moved to Los Angeles. I wonder what my life may have been like had we lived in Canada my entire life.
My name is Carolyn Emily Della Malva and I am 22 years old. I started to play the violin when I was a child, like my cousins did. I am an artist and a musician, although I focus my attention more than anything on my education. I have my bachelor's degree in Biology and am studying to become a veterinarian. I have a boyfriend and our relationship is strong and healthy. We are talking about getting married one day. I want to be married in the church where my parents were married.
My closest two friends are my cousins Calan and Leila. Although we cannot be together as often as when we were younger, we still see each other at special events, like when Leila sang at her recital, and every chance we get to see The Lucky Machetes in action.
I'm very close with my Aunts, Paola on my Father's side, and Catherine on my Mother's side. They've helped to shape me into the strong and confident woman that I am. I see them and my other extended family as often as I possibly can. I never forget a birthday.
In my future, I forsee myself getting my PH.D. in Veterinary Medicine and getting a job as a vet in the clinic where I already work as a tech. I see myself getting married to the man I love and taking our mentioned honeymoon around Europe and Asia together. We are both in love with India, and we have my Auntie Catherine's advice on when and where to go when we get the time. I've already travelled to Africa with my cousin Sara to aid the children in Burkina Fasso, and we're planning a trip back again within the next few years.
My brother and I get along. He is supportive of my art and my work. We write songs together sometimes when we have the time to get together.
I'm happy and stable and, to be honest, a bit sheltered and naive. I have never had to worry about where I would be sleeping or where I would find food. I believe that people are good, and I have high expectations. I respect myself in every way and I'm proud to be where I am.
I hope to someday go skydiving.
I typed the sentence "I have a pet dog, a maltese." and that's where I stopped myself. I couldn't go on. I know that, even if we had never moved, we probably would have ended up with a maltese because of my persistent love of animals, and my brother's and my own allergies to dander. But I realized that we would have gone to a different breeder, and wouldn't have ever had our Prince. And when we went to get a companion for this dog, we would have gone to yet another different breeder and wouldn't have ever had our Duchess. No Duchess. That would mean that Duchess would have been adopted by someone else. I can't deal with the thought of it. Maybe, yes, she may have gone to someone who would have loved her as much as I love her... but maybe, just maybe she wouldn't have. I can't bear to imagine someone hurting her or ignoring her or anything of the like. I can't.
So my little fantasy world blinked out of existence that quickly.
I know that my life has been, and will continue to be, less than perfect; but it has led me to where I am today. My life has brought to me the friends and the loved ones that are in my life and who have helped to shape me into the person that I am. Who am I to say what my life would be like had we never left Canada. I have no way of knowing that it would be so much better. I watched the explanation of the ten dimensions on YouTube again yesterday night. Today I saw a short video about a man who claims to have gone briefly to the future and pleasantly met himself. Maybe, in one of the infinite possible parallel universes which could exist, mirrorring our own, my character lives a pristine life. However, I know there are probably a million scenarios of an equal or lesser fate for my parallel self for every one positive or seemingly perfect selfs I can imagine. I am here, now, with this past and this present, ever enclosing on my influenced future, because that is where I was meant to be.
I
I am here now, and for all the horrors of this world, to have suffered as comparably little as I have; for that I am lucky and I am grateful... and I am proud.
My name is Carolyn Emily Joan Heather Augustana Della Malva, and I hope, one day, to be closer to my extended family. In the meantime, I am living my life to the best of my ability. I am stubborn and I am strong and I refuse to let myself be unhappy. I therefore do whatever I have to do to make sure that I live with no regrets and with no unfulfilled ambitions. So when I say that I hope to one day be closer to my extended family, I mean that one day, it will happen. It will happen.
I love copiously, and I strive to spread that feeling.
Maiyana said "Thank you." today, and hugged me. And I could feel that she meant it. And the hugs of Mason and Imani were just as genuine. I made a difference here. A small one, maybe, but a difference nonetheless.
I reached out and gave encouragement.
I was love.
I still am.
I always will be
<3
Monday, March 14, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
Acceptance and Moving On
You know, I think we had a good talk just now. You think that I'm broken and that you know how to fix me. You give me tips.
I know that I'm broken, but I'm happy anyway, and I've already done everything that you suggest. You refuse to admit that what I've done is the same as what you suggested I should do.
I think, after having our conversation, and you ending it with the simple dismissal that I wasn't ready to have that talk yet, you really just showed me that you're broken, too. But you're unhappy. So you're trying to fix me in hopes of fixing yourself, however subconsciously.
I know that I can't move around forever, but moving around is what I want to do right now. I even made a list. And I'm not going to stop until I've checked off every item on that list. Not just because it's something to do, either, but to prove to myself that I can finish a task I've started.
You said I have to face my fears, but I have so many fears, I have to face them one at a time. There's no possible way I could face them all at once.
I was afraid to be away from home.
Now I'm not even afraid to be homeless.
I was afraid to fall.
Now I'm not even afraid to jump.
I was afraid to be lost.
Now I'm not even afraid to have no destination.
I was afraid to be alone.
Now I'm not even afraid to pick up and leave.
Now I'm afraid to get too close to people,
but I have friends all over the country whom I love and who love me. I have boundaries now which I never had before. I once let people walk all over me and mistook it for affection. I'm wiser now- and so with that wisdom came distance.
This distance is the phase I know I'll get over one day. One day I'll fall in love with someone who loves me back and I'll open my heart- but not before I've found a person who can truly compliment everything I am. One day I'll find a place where I feel at home again; where driving the same streets to work everyday won't get boring and I'll no longer feel burning curiosity as to what lies beyond the horizon. When I've seen the world and found the place where I belong, then and only then will I stop moving around. You know why? Because I finally discovered my own worth, and I'm worth the best of everything. I deserve to live in the perfect place. I deserve to have the best friends. I deserve to be loved wholly and entirely. I will not settle for less.
This is my fear: to settle for less than I am worth.
I feel like it's a decent fear to have, and one which everyone should embrace. If there's one thing I feel people should be terrified of, it's leaving life un-lived.
So far, I am proud of what I have accomplished. I've battled and beaten down depression without the numbing facade of pills. I've overcome addiction and have fought through cravings and won. I've broken bad habits. I've made plans and stuck to them. I've been through hard times and come out stronger. I've made new best friends in every corner of the country. I've fallen in love too many times to count. Most importantly, I've learned how to love mySELF.
I'm sorry that you feel as though you are fighting a losing battle to "fix" me. The thing you must realize is that you cannot fix anyone but yourself. I may be broken, but I've been piecing myself back together for so long that it won't be too long until I'm all together and shining like new. My cracked frame in the mirror does not scare me.
Like I said, I love myself, even broken as I am.
I'm sorry that you feel as though I have to fix her, too. I can't do that. Only she can. I tried to fix her for a long time and I only ended up hurting both of us. All you can do is let go. Move on.
You think I ignore the worse sides of me, that I cover my scars or am ashamed of them. I wish I could tell you just how wrong you are. There is a conversation I must have with our parents first, I wouldn't want them to hear any other way. Perhaps this is incentive. My scars are the foundation of my life. They helped to shape me into the beautiful, wonderful person I am today, and I am so proud to bear them.
I wish you were easier to talk to. I wish you wouldn't judge me so much. You don't think that you do... but you do. I think there's a lot you deny about yourself. I hope that you find yourself. I want you to be happy. I want that even more than I want you to be proud of me. I realize now that I want you to love and accept yourself so much more than I want you to love and accept me.
Unfortunately, this is a conversation that you're not ready to have with me. You get so defensive and angry so fast- so quick to point blame and boast superior knowledge. Your ego gets in the way of our relationship.
It's okay.
One day maybe you'll read this and realize that I don't need you to help me find myself. I know who I am. Like I said. I know exactly who I am, I just don't know where I'm going.
And I'm okay with that. You should be, too.
But you won't be, not yet. You'll read this a shake your head. You'll click your tongue and think to yourself how naive I am, how lost- and without even realizing it. You'll want to shake me, you'll be so frustrated. You'll want to yell that I'm destroying my life, that I'll end up just like Nonna, lost and hopeless.
What you can't understand is that I'm happier than I've ever been. I've found the secret to sustainable personal happiness. You think it'll end and I'll be miserable, but I've already been miserable and pulled myself out of it once, I can do it again. I have faith in myself. I intend to be happy until the day I die, whenever that may be. I think I finally have my priorities just right, and with every word I type, I grow more confident in that fact. I move around the country because I want to see it, and a few years ago I decided that you can't get the feel for an area in a day or a week. You have to live there, experience the day to day and get to know people in order to truly understand it. So instead of a road trip in which I would visit every state, I devised a longer trip. At least three months in each area. So that's what I'm doing, and it's been the adventure of a lifetime. I'm almost finished, too:
Washington, New Hampshire, Canada, and Italy. These are the places I want to live, now, while I'm young.
I'll drive a truck to save up money to get across the ocean. I'll live in our house in Italy, figuring something out for work, I'll know Italian by then so it'll be easier. I'll travel Europe from there on week-long trips or something. From there, if I choose to, I'll make my way East to India and Bangladesh. Maybe I'll end up in Japan and Australia. But I have my whole life to visit those places... I'm not too desperate to get there immediately.
Canada will be beautiful. I'll probably be there for at least a year. I want to experience every season. Something in me tells me I might end up there in the long run. That doesn't scare me at all. And at the same time, my whole life is open to rapid change and random planning, which makes me even happier.
I am so happy.
I'm happy to the point that, even when I get sad, I'm happy about it, because I love my ability to feel emotion. I feel so strongly and it's one of my best qualities.
I feel such love for you, and I feel such sorrow that you can't be happy for me in my happiness because you can't understand it.
I hope so strongly that changes, but even if it doesn't I'll still love you
and be happy.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Slow Down Feel Love
My Lily-face made it through sugery splendidly. I am so ridiculously relieved. It will be a long two weeks of healing now, and hoping she doesn't pick out any of her stitches, but I am so hopeful. : )
Tomorrow will be another day for writing. I intend to send out a package to my parents and one to my friends in North Carolina, both including love notes. I also intend to write a belated birthday letter to my sponsored child, Mostakin, congratulating him on turning nine years old.
I’m hoping to be able to finish my yoga sculpture tomorrow, and to be able to do more studying of the Italian language. I’ll be working on the chapter about introducing yourself and talking about where you come from. I’ve mastered everything up to there, I just need to take time out to proceed. I’ll be spending all day listening to the Makepeace Brothers, and soaking in their love and sincerity.
I also plan on donating blood and cleaning my room… but we’ll see where that goes, haha.
In the mean time, I’ll be writing.
Last night I had a sudden revelation, spurred by Stumble Upon, my latest resource for inspiration and beauty. I can spend hours stumbling from webpage to webpage, finding everything- ingenuity, music, art, beauty, community, and culture. Last night, Stumble Upon showed me something that wrenched me open, and let everything I didn’t know I was holding in way out into the open. It was a video, set to emotional music, of a cat trying to revive its dead friend. You could clearly see its confusion and distress, and from the moment it started, my heart began to break. I thought about stumbling away, but I couldn’t. It would have been wrong to. You can’t just look away from the suffering in the world and pretend it doesn’t exist, then walk around like you understand it all… you have to let it in, you have to experience it; otherwise you’re just numb and naive. A minute into the video I was crying. By the end, I was sobbing uncontrollably. The worry of the past few days for the comfort and health of my rat, Lily, which I had assumed I had overcome, came bubbling back to the surface, bringing with it all of the loss I had ever felt in my life. I relived the deaths of every single person and animal I had loved with emotion just as raw, feeling the desperation, the misery, and the hopelessness to help. The guilt. Then, beyond that, I felt the loss and devastation of the whole world. I felt every person affected by death, starvation, humiliation, and suffering; and I wept for all of it.
Then, suddenly, gasping for breath and wracked with sobs, tears soaking my face and shirt, I sat up. A realization struck me. This, that I was feeling, was love. Not romantic, heart-fluttery, butterfly-stomached love. No, this was unabashed, untainted, pure, all-encompassing LOVE. This was the love of the entire universe that I was feeling. It is impossible to feel grief without first feeling love, and in that moment I could feel the underlying magnitude of all the love existing within every single living thing all over the world. And my capacity to embrace this love, I then realized, was the evidence of my connection to all of it.
There is a type of tree, a Quaking Aspen called Pando, which appears on the surface to be a forest of trees. However, if you look under the line of soil, there is, in fact, only one root system. These trees that look as though they are simply standing near to each other, are actually just appendages of one SINGLE plant. They are all connected.
They are ONE.
As are WE. Our root system is LOVE. We may appear to be alone in our lives, moving from one place to another, unaffected by those around us, but in reality we are surrounded by love. And like that plant, if one of us is affected, it can be felt by others very far away.
Yesterday I felt all of it, and it was a beautiful and affirming thing. It was the exact experience that I needed to help me cope with feelings I’ve been holding onto. Sorrow is such a tricky thing, it can follow you at such a distance that you believe it to be gone entirely, until the day it pops up out of nowhere to overwhelm you. My guilt, over so much of the loss in my past, is one of those types of sorrow. But now I know that the only thing that keeps it tethered to me, following so resolutely, is love.
For one example, I still feel so guilty for what happened to my little kitten, Eve- something that I know deep down was just an unfortunate accident. I realize now that the reason this guilt will never leave me is that I still love her. I will always love her, even though she has been gone for longer than she was ever here, I loved her as much today as I loved her when I held her in my hands the day she died. And now, despite the pain I may occasionally feel, I am so immensely grateful for my capacity to love so enduringly, and my grief and my guilt and my sorrow are all constant reminders of my beautiful capacity to LOVE.
I love with such a passion, it sometimes takes my breath away. Last night, I realized that I love so much more strongly than I thought possible. Today I love even more. My heart bursts with it, and I give it freely. Take as much as you need. I love you, so.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)
Tomorrow will be another day for writing. I intend to send out a package to my parents and one to my friends in North Carolina, both including love notes. I also intend to write a belated birthday letter to my sponsored child, Mostakin, congratulating him on turning nine years old.
I’m hoping to be able to finish my yoga sculpture tomorrow, and to be able to do more studying of the Italian language. I’ll be working on the chapter about introducing yourself and talking about where you come from. I’ve mastered everything up to there, I just need to take time out to proceed. I’ll be spending all day listening to the Makepeace Brothers, and soaking in their love and sincerity.
I also plan on donating blood and cleaning my room… but we’ll see where that goes, haha.
In the mean time, I’ll be writing.
Last night I had a sudden revelation, spurred by Stumble Upon, my latest resource for inspiration and beauty. I can spend hours stumbling from webpage to webpage, finding everything- ingenuity, music, art, beauty, community, and culture. Last night, Stumble Upon showed me something that wrenched me open, and let everything I didn’t know I was holding in way out into the open. It was a video, set to emotional music, of a cat trying to revive its dead friend. You could clearly see its confusion and distress, and from the moment it started, my heart began to break. I thought about stumbling away, but I couldn’t. It would have been wrong to. You can’t just look away from the suffering in the world and pretend it doesn’t exist, then walk around like you understand it all… you have to let it in, you have to experience it; otherwise you’re just numb and naive. A minute into the video I was crying. By the end, I was sobbing uncontrollably. The worry of the past few days for the comfort and health of my rat, Lily, which I had assumed I had overcome, came bubbling back to the surface, bringing with it all of the loss I had ever felt in my life. I relived the deaths of every single person and animal I had loved with emotion just as raw, feeling the desperation, the misery, and the hopelessness to help. The guilt. Then, beyond that, I felt the loss and devastation of the whole world. I felt every person affected by death, starvation, humiliation, and suffering; and I wept for all of it.
Then, suddenly, gasping for breath and wracked with sobs, tears soaking my face and shirt, I sat up. A realization struck me. This, that I was feeling, was love. Not romantic, heart-fluttery, butterfly-stomached love. No, this was unabashed, untainted, pure, all-encompassing LOVE. This was the love of the entire universe that I was feeling. It is impossible to feel grief without first feeling love, and in that moment I could feel the underlying magnitude of all the love existing within every single living thing all over the world. And my capacity to embrace this love, I then realized, was the evidence of my connection to all of it.
There is a type of tree, a Quaking Aspen called Pando, which appears on the surface to be a forest of trees. However, if you look under the line of soil, there is, in fact, only one root system. These trees that look as though they are simply standing near to each other, are actually just appendages of one SINGLE plant. They are all connected.
They are ONE.
As are WE. Our root system is LOVE. We may appear to be alone in our lives, moving from one place to another, unaffected by those around us, but in reality we are surrounded by love. And like that plant, if one of us is affected, it can be felt by others very far away.
Yesterday I felt all of it, and it was a beautiful and affirming thing. It was the exact experience that I needed to help me cope with feelings I’ve been holding onto. Sorrow is such a tricky thing, it can follow you at such a distance that you believe it to be gone entirely, until the day it pops up out of nowhere to overwhelm you. My guilt, over so much of the loss in my past, is one of those types of sorrow. But now I know that the only thing that keeps it tethered to me, following so resolutely, is love.
For one example, I still feel so guilty for what happened to my little kitten, Eve- something that I know deep down was just an unfortunate accident. I realize now that the reason this guilt will never leave me is that I still love her. I will always love her, even though she has been gone for longer than she was ever here, I loved her as much today as I loved her when I held her in my hands the day she died. And now, despite the pain I may occasionally feel, I am so immensely grateful for my capacity to love so enduringly, and my grief and my guilt and my sorrow are all constant reminders of my beautiful capacity to LOVE.
I love with such a passion, it sometimes takes my breath away. Last night, I realized that I love so much more strongly than I thought possible. Today I love even more. My heart bursts with it, and I give it freely. Take as much as you need. I love you, so.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Love for My Lily-Face
I’m on the verge of tears tonight, weighed down with worry and memory. Just less than two and a half years ago, my sweet baby Delilah was lost to a battle with a facial tumor. She was just a rat.
No.
She was a friend, a comfort, a confidant, a companion, a ceaseless fountain on love and support. She loved me unconditionally and she was torn from me violently over a three week period after a three year friendship. She suffered and I can’t help but blame myself. I feel like I let her down. I have let down so many…
It was a tornado of events even before she got sick. I was homeless for the first time. Ashamed and beaten, I was already planning on going home. I then lost my store as well as I discovered that my manager didn’t like me and was transferring me out. During a nearly shattering blow to my recently built up image of my own self-worth, then a careful period of reinforcement, both at subsequent music venues, I also had to deal with the falseness of a supposed good friend, and the heavenly appearance of a new friend. Then- tragedy, my Delilah was torn from me unceremoniously. I didn’t even have anywhere to bury her. And, as if I didn’t have enough on my plate, just days later, the car accident that sent me packing, spirit broken, tail between my legs. I’ve never been as shaken as I was that night in the Arby’s parking lot with my bags over my shoulders, tow-truck disappearing in the distance, and no one answering on the other line of my desperately punched phone numbers. I couldn’t stop myself from letting go the wrenching sobs born in my chest. I have never been so low.
Now, two and a half years later, the scars still run deep. I don’t notice them until moments like these. When I brought my Delilah into the vet after first noticing the tumor on her cheek, they were confident that surgery to remove the mass would be a successful solution to our problem. They were very very wrong.
I have to bring my sweet Lily-face, dear friend for the past year and a half, to the vet in eight hours. She has a mammary tumor larger than a tangerine and the vet said she was confident that surgery to remove the mass will be successful. Logically she’s right. The tumor is run of the mill. It is most likely benign, as most rats’ mammary tumors are, and there is no evidence of any other tumors growing in any other region of her body. The tumor does not seem to have infiltrated her chest cavity, and will most likely take half an hour to remove at most.
Nevertheless, I feel a deep seeded sense of impending doom. I am terrified to the pit of my being. I can’t sleep, my stomach churns, my hands shake. I am reliving every single moment of those months I spent in Phoenix, the rollercoaster ride of emotions, the loss. I miss Delilah too much to express, and I worry even more for the safety of my baby, Lily. There are so many things that can go wrong, and there are so many loved ones that I have lost tragically and unexpectedly: My Nonno, My Grandpa, Prince, Eve, Tulip, Spunky, Delilah, Thumper, Shamu, Steve. There is no line for me that separates family from friends from animals from strangers. For me, love is love, and I love with undeniable, undying passion.
I love Lily.
I am so scared.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Like Language
Music is like a language that I can understand perfectly, but that I cannot speak. It is so frustrating to hear a wonderful conversation that I cannot join. The language I speak is one of a different dimension. I speak the language of subtle curves in the fabric of space. I speak a language of patient silence and aching back muscles, of frustration and repetition and bandaged fingertips. I speak the language of sculpture, and for this I am grateful.
But the only language I have ever truly wanted to know has always been music. I want so badly to let beautiful sounds erupt from my throat and melodies to strum their way from my fingertips. I’ve wanted to add bits of myself to a drum circle or an open mic night, to make people’s toes tap and lips curl upward as their voices rise alongside my own. I have always wanted to stand alone before ten thousand people and to share a melody with each and every one of them, as personal as if we were soul mates.
The language of sculpture has the ability to tell beautiful stories and to withstand the tests of time; even to affect the masses among the best of us- yet it is quite a solitary song, to be sung alone and viewed alone and interpreted alone. It is a wonderful thing that I have and I want so badly to appreciate it fully, but I cannot help but feel as though I am missing one of my senses, and the world is incomplete.
Maybe I’ll learn to sculpt music, and then I’ll be whole. Until then I’ll listen and dream.
But the only language I have ever truly wanted to know has always been music. I want so badly to let beautiful sounds erupt from my throat and melodies to strum their way from my fingertips. I’ve wanted to add bits of myself to a drum circle or an open mic night, to make people’s toes tap and lips curl upward as their voices rise alongside my own. I have always wanted to stand alone before ten thousand people and to share a melody with each and every one of them, as personal as if we were soul mates.
The language of sculpture has the ability to tell beautiful stories and to withstand the tests of time; even to affect the masses among the best of us- yet it is quite a solitary song, to be sung alone and viewed alone and interpreted alone. It is a wonderful thing that I have and I want so badly to appreciate it fully, but I cannot help but feel as though I am missing one of my senses, and the world is incomplete.
Maybe I’ll learn to sculpt music, and then I’ll be whole. Until then I’ll listen and dream.
Friday, December 31, 2010
The Next Chapter
10:00p.m. MST – 12:00a.m. EST
Some words from one of my heroes, Butch Walker
12/25
"I just want to say that life is precious. Life is wonderful. Life is unpredictable. So please, go out and live your own. It’s going to only get weirder and wilder from this point on, so please, don’t sit in your little bubble and listen and follow what you have been taught or told your whole life (because there’s a 72% chance that it was all BULLSHIT). You have the ability to take chances, sleep on floors in random strangers’ houses, drive around the country, fly around the world (if you can afford a ticket), backpack anywhere, and believe anything and nothing. Whatever it is that you choose to do, just do it, and act on impulse and will. I can smell it on people a mile away if they were brought up as carbon copies of their own peers. The shirts, the lingo, the philosophy, the record collection, etc… just take chances because you will never regret that. This is a promise."
I spent New Year’s Eve last year driving. I had been visiting my family in Florida from where I was living in Virginia, and I had to be back in Chesapeake for work on the first, so at six a.m. on December 31st, 2009, I left Port Charlotte, where I had been visiting my friend Gene, with my mom. We stopped for breakfast and I dropped her off in Orlando at nine. I picked up my things and my rat, Lily, and headed north. I drove all day, cracked out on red bull and Starbucks Double Shots. It was a difficult day.
The drive was long, and would have been fine, except for the possum that ran out in front of my car on Highway 58E. I had never hit an animal before, and the guilt was voracious. To make matters worse, the conditions which prohibited me from seeing the possum were the same conditions which prevented me from getting out to check on it. If I had stopped my car and gotten out, chances were very great that another car would have come speeding along through the blackness and I, myself, would have become roadkill. I didn’t stop.
I got back to Virginia Beach just before midnight. I went inside to find Sam watching the New York City times-square festivities; so, exhausted though I was, I sat with him to watch. It was too much, though, to see poor Dick Clark fumble through the count-down with his stroke-stricken body. I went to bed thoroughly depressed. Way to bring in the new year, right?
But the next morning brought a new year, and new opportunities to embrace the world with open arms. I accept my sadness the night before as evidence of my compassion, but the life is about so much more than just that. And through the year I certainly lived.
11:00p.m. – 12:00a.m. CST
“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.” – Edith Lovejoy Pierce, twentieth century poet and pacifist.
This year past has been the most incredible year: full of strife and success, with passion, joy, and heartache.
I began the year in Virginia, right on the oceanfront, with wonderful roommates and great friends. My store was like another family and I was happy. The time came for me to make my way, and I headed west to Colorado. This brought about a replay of the timeline of my self-discovery. It was beautiful. However, things weren’t all smooth sailing. I had my share of trials. Homelessness, hunger, and theft all plagued my days. But they did only one thing to me. They made me stronger. Through my suffering, I found forgiveness, self-reliance, and resourcefulness. I made my days count, and I took every opportunity that presented itself. I never missed a Friday night or a road trip. I explored the countryside and found coincidence. I lived. I truly lived. And so, the days passed. Now I find myself in the canyons of Idaho, with farmland to the north and south, friends all around, and more trials to deal with at every turn.
I grow every day.
The new year is coming up quickly now, and I foresee a prosperous year, filled with challenges, new friends, and resolutions kept. Now, I don’t have standard one year resolutions. I made a list two years ago. This list has a variety of things on it which I wanted to accomplish within four years. I was inspired to make this list by the presidential election. If we can demand so much of a single man, we can demand so much of ourselves. I wanted to improve upon myself as much as I want to see this country I love so much improved. Here I am now, halfway through my time, and I can say with no reservations, that I’m proud of myself. I’ve allowed myself the luxury of re-thinking my list as time goes on. I realize certain things aren’t as important to me as I may have once believed; and I also realize other things are important. Losing weight isn’t actually something I feel I need to do. What I do need to do, however, is to truly accept myself for who I am. I am beautiful, and I know it, but I have to know it with every fiber of my being. I’m getting there. As long as I’m healthy and happy, nothing else matters. Living in Pennsylvania and half of the other states I wrote down isn’t really important to me. I’d like to see them, sure, but what is important to me is making the most of the places I do live. So I do. Travelling to Europe and learning new languages is very important to me. I’ve realized that I can’t just wait until I have the money to do things the way I dream to do them. I can put one foot in front of the other where I am now and slowly make my way. So I am.
12:00a.m. MST
Happy New Year.
Fireworks sound outside, and I feel joy over the throbbing in my head. My throat scratches, but my heart pounds still, and I am happy. Yesterday was a hard day, but today is a new day, with new opportunities for adventure. I’m ready. Welcome to 2011, the next chapter in the story of your life. Write it well.
“I want to spread a message to everyone I know and everyone I will know, that life isn’t about looking back with regret, or even looking forward with longing. Life is about looking around you exactly where you are now and embracing the world you live in. Now is the time to make changes if they are to be made. Now is the time to celebrate what should be cherished. Right in this moment is the only place you ever truly are, and the person you see in the mirror is the true you. Be how you’ve always wished to be instead of waiting for something or someone else to come and change you. Once you’ve learned how to take hold of the life you’re living as you live it, the possibilities are endless.” – Carolyn Della Malva, poet, sculptor, traveler, barista, friend, fan, and avid wearer of socks 01/01/11
In an hour it will be 2011 across the country. I'm going to bed soon, ready to start a new day and beat this cold that's been plaguing me since just before Christmas. In the meantime, I want to wish everyone I know a happy new year. I love you all. Good night.
Some words from one of my heroes, Butch Walker
12/25
"I just want to say that life is precious. Life is wonderful. Life is unpredictable. So please, go out and live your own. It’s going to only get weirder and wilder from this point on, so please, don’t sit in your little bubble and listen and follow what you have been taught or told your whole life (because there’s a 72% chance that it was all BULLSHIT). You have the ability to take chances, sleep on floors in random strangers’ houses, drive around the country, fly around the world (if you can afford a ticket), backpack anywhere, and believe anything and nothing. Whatever it is that you choose to do, just do it, and act on impulse and will. I can smell it on people a mile away if they were brought up as carbon copies of their own peers. The shirts, the lingo, the philosophy, the record collection, etc… just take chances because you will never regret that. This is a promise."
I spent New Year’s Eve last year driving. I had been visiting my family in Florida from where I was living in Virginia, and I had to be back in Chesapeake for work on the first, so at six a.m. on December 31st, 2009, I left Port Charlotte, where I had been visiting my friend Gene, with my mom. We stopped for breakfast and I dropped her off in Orlando at nine. I picked up my things and my rat, Lily, and headed north. I drove all day, cracked out on red bull and Starbucks Double Shots. It was a difficult day.
The drive was long, and would have been fine, except for the possum that ran out in front of my car on Highway 58E. I had never hit an animal before, and the guilt was voracious. To make matters worse, the conditions which prohibited me from seeing the possum were the same conditions which prevented me from getting out to check on it. If I had stopped my car and gotten out, chances were very great that another car would have come speeding along through the blackness and I, myself, would have become roadkill. I didn’t stop.
I got back to Virginia Beach just before midnight. I went inside to find Sam watching the New York City times-square festivities; so, exhausted though I was, I sat with him to watch. It was too much, though, to see poor Dick Clark fumble through the count-down with his stroke-stricken body. I went to bed thoroughly depressed. Way to bring in the new year, right?
But the next morning brought a new year, and new opportunities to embrace the world with open arms. I accept my sadness the night before as evidence of my compassion, but the life is about so much more than just that. And through the year I certainly lived.
11:00p.m. – 12:00a.m. CST
“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.” – Edith Lovejoy Pierce, twentieth century poet and pacifist.
This year past has been the most incredible year: full of strife and success, with passion, joy, and heartache.
I began the year in Virginia, right on the oceanfront, with wonderful roommates and great friends. My store was like another family and I was happy. The time came for me to make my way, and I headed west to Colorado. This brought about a replay of the timeline of my self-discovery. It was beautiful. However, things weren’t all smooth sailing. I had my share of trials. Homelessness, hunger, and theft all plagued my days. But they did only one thing to me. They made me stronger. Through my suffering, I found forgiveness, self-reliance, and resourcefulness. I made my days count, and I took every opportunity that presented itself. I never missed a Friday night or a road trip. I explored the countryside and found coincidence. I lived. I truly lived. And so, the days passed. Now I find myself in the canyons of Idaho, with farmland to the north and south, friends all around, and more trials to deal with at every turn.
I grow every day.
The new year is coming up quickly now, and I foresee a prosperous year, filled with challenges, new friends, and resolutions kept. Now, I don’t have standard one year resolutions. I made a list two years ago. This list has a variety of things on it which I wanted to accomplish within four years. I was inspired to make this list by the presidential election. If we can demand so much of a single man, we can demand so much of ourselves. I wanted to improve upon myself as much as I want to see this country I love so much improved. Here I am now, halfway through my time, and I can say with no reservations, that I’m proud of myself. I’ve allowed myself the luxury of re-thinking my list as time goes on. I realize certain things aren’t as important to me as I may have once believed; and I also realize other things are important. Losing weight isn’t actually something I feel I need to do. What I do need to do, however, is to truly accept myself for who I am. I am beautiful, and I know it, but I have to know it with every fiber of my being. I’m getting there. As long as I’m healthy and happy, nothing else matters. Living in Pennsylvania and half of the other states I wrote down isn’t really important to me. I’d like to see them, sure, but what is important to me is making the most of the places I do live. So I do. Travelling to Europe and learning new languages is very important to me. I’ve realized that I can’t just wait until I have the money to do things the way I dream to do them. I can put one foot in front of the other where I am now and slowly make my way. So I am.
12:00a.m. MST
Happy New Year.
Fireworks sound outside, and I feel joy over the throbbing in my head. My throat scratches, but my heart pounds still, and I am happy. Yesterday was a hard day, but today is a new day, with new opportunities for adventure. I’m ready. Welcome to 2011, the next chapter in the story of your life. Write it well.
“I want to spread a message to everyone I know and everyone I will know, that life isn’t about looking back with regret, or even looking forward with longing. Life is about looking around you exactly where you are now and embracing the world you live in. Now is the time to make changes if they are to be made. Now is the time to celebrate what should be cherished. Right in this moment is the only place you ever truly are, and the person you see in the mirror is the true you. Be how you’ve always wished to be instead of waiting for something or someone else to come and change you. Once you’ve learned how to take hold of the life you’re living as you live it, the possibilities are endless.” – Carolyn Della Malva, poet, sculptor, traveler, barista, friend, fan, and avid wearer of socks 01/01/11
In an hour it will be 2011 across the country. I'm going to bed soon, ready to start a new day and beat this cold that's been plaguing me since just before Christmas. In the meantime, I want to wish everyone I know a happy new year. I love you all. Good night.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
The Santa Anna Winds Again...
My name is Anna, and I live in Twin Falls, Idaho. This place is nothing like what I may have expected. At every turn, I’m completely taken aback. Here’s my first impression of what I’d find in Idaho. I had left Yellowstone and had driven for a few hours. The sun had set, though it was only around seven thirty or so, and I had found myself a sketchy little rest stop. It was poorly lit and awkwardly arranged as far as parking was concerned. Inside there were a men’s area, a women’s area, and a family bathroom with the door propped open, which was, I think, the main source of the overwhelming stench in the common area. I proceeded to the women’s area. Through the door were a few stalls and some sinks- quite standard. The door shut behind me and drowned out most of the aroma. Altogether, maybe a four on the rest area bathroom scale. Don’t scroll ahead quite yet. I haven’t been writing all of this simply to tell you about a bathroom (although, if you are opposed to potty talk, I would go ahead and skip onto the next paragraph). I did my business and washed my hands. The water coming from the faucets was hotter than I usually find at rest stops, and I got the idea through my head to grab the bag from my car and give my hair a good wash in the hot water there. I walked back to my car a started to grab the few things I would need to take in with me when a car pulled up. Nobody got out for a little while, so I went ahead back into the bathroom. I decided to stall for time by changing my clothes first. As I changed, an old woman waddled her way into the women’s toilet area. The very first thing she did when she walked in was to announce (to me?) that she had taken her teeth out because they hurt her mouth. I was confused. I was hoping that she would just do her business and leave, allowing me to have full access to the sink area. Nope. She proceeded to belch- loudly- repeatedly. Mind you, she did excuse herself each time. I tried to wait her out, but decided it was no use when sudden grunting, tooting, and mumbling commenced. Perhaps she just hadn’t had her prune juice that day, I don’t know. All I know is that it was absolutely the most awkwardly horrible thing I’ve ever had to listen to. It couldn’t have ended soon enough. I had to return to my car and wait for this small old woman to return to her husband waiting in the car out front of the shady building before heading back in to wash my hair. I wasn’t surprised by any other late night stoppers… but I should say that one was certainly enough.
Um, so welcome to Idaho. Anyway, the town is bigger than I expected it to be. I arrived here after the sun had set, and was immediately greeted with a street reminiscent of Highway 192 in Kissimmee, FL: it was big and bustling and brightly lit with shops of all sorts on both sides of the road. I was surprised to say the least. I had expected a Golden sized town, maybe somewhere around one or two thousand population, a river, some farms… that sort of thing. What I found, on the other hand, is a small city, albeit the only city within 200 miles, full of places to go and things to do; lots of meth and few potatoes apparently. I found myself a nice, cozy Walmart and spent the warmer than anticipated night. The next morning I navigated my way to Starbucks to do some undercover surveillance of my new store. They are a bunch of great people. My new manager, Russ, is a teeny bit on the more managerial side of things than I’m used to- but then my last few managers had been younger people who had started as baristas and moved up in the company. Russ is an outside hire and therefore lacks a bit of the laid-back qualities that I had grown to love. No worries though, he’s a really great guy. I work with mostly girls, there’s really only Billy in addition to Russ in the testosterone department of the store, and I’ve been getting along really well with all the girls (except Sheila a little bit, but I’m hoping she’ll warm up to me). Amanda is the resident lesbian, and I must say she is my favourite of the group so far. She has a personality very much compatible with my own, and she and her friend Andy (also a favourite and big lover of mash-ups) really crack me up.
My new roommate, Nicola, is also fantastic. I was at the Starbucks on that first day here and I was searching Craigslist for rooms for rent. I figured that it would take me a few days to find a place at best, and I was ready for some tedious calling and emailing and viewing. I found a listing for a place nearby and called the number. I left a message and thought nothing else of it. I searched a bit more online for rooms, but finding nothing else that immediately caught my eye, I had just about decided to call it a day for the time being. I was about to close up the laptop when my phone rang. It was Nicola. She had been in class and hadn’t been able to return my call until then. She asked if I wanted to come by that afternoon while she was on her lunch break so she could show me the place. She sounded nice and I was ecstatic. We agreed to meet at noon. I got lost a bit on my way to the house- the street sign is behind a tree and there’s a turn onto a dirt road that I didn’t know about, but I was only a few minutes late. I walked through the front door and was immediately greeted by Nicola and her friend Liz having lunch in the living room, with Liz’s young daughter toddling around their knees. They invited me in warmly and Nicola gave me the dime tour. The room I’d be renting was still a bit full of her daughter’s things, but she’d be clearing it out that evening. Her fourteen year old daughter, Maiyana, was headed to Jackpot, Nevada (about 45 minutes away) to live with Nic’s soon to be ex-husband George so that she could be in a smaller school that could give her more one on one attention. The apartment was cozy but clean, and Nic and Liz were so nice, I ended up cutting a check for my first month and moving my stuff into the room within the first half-hour after we had met.
I’ve been here for a few weeks now, and I must say that it is absolutely incredible having a place to live again. I have my own heater so I never get too cold at night. I have a window with blinds, so I can sleep in as late as I want in the mornings. I have a kitchen with a refrigerator- which I have been keeping chalk full of all sorts of vegetables and fruit. I have an oven where I can make soup. I have a place to use my dishes and I wash the dishes all the time. I have to confess that I love washing the dishes. I thought it was just at work- but no! I really love washing dishes. Nicola loves me for that. I also have a washer and drier right here in the house so I don’t have to worry about keeping myself stocked with quarters for the Laundromat. I have a shower that I can use whenever I want and a sink to brush my teeth in. I can drink fluids past seven p.m. because I don’t have to worry about waking up in the middle of the night with nowhere to go. And most importantly, I have a BED. A real bed! It has a mattress and a box spring and a frame and everything. I bought new sheets for it. I make it after I sleep in it (occasionally), more often just if we’ll be having company. I can let the rats out of their cage to explore (although Violet has taken to scratching at the carpet in the corners, so I have to keep a really close eye on them because I really want my pet deposit back). And Nicola has the entire Friends collection on DVD and I’ve been watching it pretty much nonstop for over a week now. Chandler just proposed to Monica… omg! (Not that I didn’t know it happened… but I had never seen the episode. In fact, we’re getting into a lot of new territory this season. I stopped watching the show so much around this time) But really- this whole thing is so incredible. I love this apartment so much.
Idaho is turning out to be quite fantastic. It has snowed about a foot since I moved here, and it’s looking like it’ll be keeping this up throughout the holidays. I was invited to Thanksgiving lunch by a customer at work, and provided I can get in touch with him before then, it’ll definitely be something that I am up for. I’ve found a natural foods shop that’s short on produce, but does house a lovely woman by the name of Mary who wears a sweater just like the one I got for my mom for Christmas years back and who ordered a case of Mango Kombucha just for me for when I return to her shop on Monday. I’ve been recycling my fruit bags and buying whole wheat pasta and lots of carrots. I bought a French Press and teapot during our partner discount days this week with my extra 10% off, and I’ll be getting an $150 bonus next month with Starbucks’ re-implementation of the whole bonus system. I biked to work for the first few days here, and would be doing it still if my front tire hadn’t popped again. I have to get whole new tires for the bike now, instead of just inner-tubes, so the biking is probably out until the summer; or until I win the lottery, you know, whichever comes first. All I have to do now is to find somewhere that I can bring my recycling because we don’t have a collection at the house. I’m feeling now that I’m finally able to be the person that I really want to be, and it’s so wonderful. I’ve even been thinking about how wonderful it would be to have back in my possession all of the things I’ve been storing at my parents’ house in Florida. I know I’m not ready to stop moving around yet, but it would be nice to get a place where I could decorate a living room or something. Oh well, all things in time.
I’ve signed up for an email called The Daily Love, and it’s been so inspiring to me along with my friends Kate and Julz. I’ve started writing again and I’ve been sending love and messages to all the people that I can. I really think I’m growing in this way, and I’m really proud of everything I’ve been able to accomplish, even just in this past month. I have a lot more to do, but I’m so happy with where I am. I feel like such a grown-up. Haha. It’s like I’ve only gotten better at pretending.
For example, you know that feeling when you’re a little kid and your mom lets you pump the gas or hand the cashier the money and you pretend like you’re all grown up. When I go grocery shopping or to the bank or cook dinner or do laundry, really just anything that involves responsibility, I feel as though I’m a little kid pretending to be grown-up. I feel like I’m dressing up in grown-up clothes and doing such a good job. I literally get giddy with my excitement. You might see me gloating and ask me what I did that day that was so fabulous, and I’ll tell you proudly, I did errands. That’s right! Errands! Hurray!!! The seven year old in me is giggling madly with pride.
Warning: Digression
I want to write a book. I’ve decided that I might be able to meld together a few of my writings to make a cohesive storyline from a few different perspectives. I’ve written about various bits of my life from various points of view, and I figure, since they’re all on a timeline, and they don’t overlap, I can merge them as different chapters or parts in one story. I think it would be interesting. We’ll see what happens… but I’m going to go work on that now. I hope you’re having a wonderful time, whatever time it is and whatever it is you’re doing with that time. I love you. More importantly, I love me. Most importantly, I love love. Good night. <3
Um, so welcome to Idaho. Anyway, the town is bigger than I expected it to be. I arrived here after the sun had set, and was immediately greeted with a street reminiscent of Highway 192 in Kissimmee, FL: it was big and bustling and brightly lit with shops of all sorts on both sides of the road. I was surprised to say the least. I had expected a Golden sized town, maybe somewhere around one or two thousand population, a river, some farms… that sort of thing. What I found, on the other hand, is a small city, albeit the only city within 200 miles, full of places to go and things to do; lots of meth and few potatoes apparently. I found myself a nice, cozy Walmart and spent the warmer than anticipated night. The next morning I navigated my way to Starbucks to do some undercover surveillance of my new store. They are a bunch of great people. My new manager, Russ, is a teeny bit on the more managerial side of things than I’m used to- but then my last few managers had been younger people who had started as baristas and moved up in the company. Russ is an outside hire and therefore lacks a bit of the laid-back qualities that I had grown to love. No worries though, he’s a really great guy. I work with mostly girls, there’s really only Billy in addition to Russ in the testosterone department of the store, and I’ve been getting along really well with all the girls (except Sheila a little bit, but I’m hoping she’ll warm up to me). Amanda is the resident lesbian, and I must say she is my favourite of the group so far. She has a personality very much compatible with my own, and she and her friend Andy (also a favourite and big lover of mash-ups) really crack me up.
My new roommate, Nicola, is also fantastic. I was at the Starbucks on that first day here and I was searching Craigslist for rooms for rent. I figured that it would take me a few days to find a place at best, and I was ready for some tedious calling and emailing and viewing. I found a listing for a place nearby and called the number. I left a message and thought nothing else of it. I searched a bit more online for rooms, but finding nothing else that immediately caught my eye, I had just about decided to call it a day for the time being. I was about to close up the laptop when my phone rang. It was Nicola. She had been in class and hadn’t been able to return my call until then. She asked if I wanted to come by that afternoon while she was on her lunch break so she could show me the place. She sounded nice and I was ecstatic. We agreed to meet at noon. I got lost a bit on my way to the house- the street sign is behind a tree and there’s a turn onto a dirt road that I didn’t know about, but I was only a few minutes late. I walked through the front door and was immediately greeted by Nicola and her friend Liz having lunch in the living room, with Liz’s young daughter toddling around their knees. They invited me in warmly and Nicola gave me the dime tour. The room I’d be renting was still a bit full of her daughter’s things, but she’d be clearing it out that evening. Her fourteen year old daughter, Maiyana, was headed to Jackpot, Nevada (about 45 minutes away) to live with Nic’s soon to be ex-husband George so that she could be in a smaller school that could give her more one on one attention. The apartment was cozy but clean, and Nic and Liz were so nice, I ended up cutting a check for my first month and moving my stuff into the room within the first half-hour after we had met.
I’ve been here for a few weeks now, and I must say that it is absolutely incredible having a place to live again. I have my own heater so I never get too cold at night. I have a window with blinds, so I can sleep in as late as I want in the mornings. I have a kitchen with a refrigerator- which I have been keeping chalk full of all sorts of vegetables and fruit. I have an oven where I can make soup. I have a place to use my dishes and I wash the dishes all the time. I have to confess that I love washing the dishes. I thought it was just at work- but no! I really love washing dishes. Nicola loves me for that. I also have a washer and drier right here in the house so I don’t have to worry about keeping myself stocked with quarters for the Laundromat. I have a shower that I can use whenever I want and a sink to brush my teeth in. I can drink fluids past seven p.m. because I don’t have to worry about waking up in the middle of the night with nowhere to go. And most importantly, I have a BED. A real bed! It has a mattress and a box spring and a frame and everything. I bought new sheets for it. I make it after I sleep in it (occasionally), more often just if we’ll be having company. I can let the rats out of their cage to explore (although Violet has taken to scratching at the carpet in the corners, so I have to keep a really close eye on them because I really want my pet deposit back). And Nicola has the entire Friends collection on DVD and I’ve been watching it pretty much nonstop for over a week now. Chandler just proposed to Monica… omg! (Not that I didn’t know it happened… but I had never seen the episode. In fact, we’re getting into a lot of new territory this season. I stopped watching the show so much around this time) But really- this whole thing is so incredible. I love this apartment so much.
Idaho is turning out to be quite fantastic. It has snowed about a foot since I moved here, and it’s looking like it’ll be keeping this up throughout the holidays. I was invited to Thanksgiving lunch by a customer at work, and provided I can get in touch with him before then, it’ll definitely be something that I am up for. I’ve found a natural foods shop that’s short on produce, but does house a lovely woman by the name of Mary who wears a sweater just like the one I got for my mom for Christmas years back and who ordered a case of Mango Kombucha just for me for when I return to her shop on Monday. I’ve been recycling my fruit bags and buying whole wheat pasta and lots of carrots. I bought a French Press and teapot during our partner discount days this week with my extra 10% off, and I’ll be getting an $150 bonus next month with Starbucks’ re-implementation of the whole bonus system. I biked to work for the first few days here, and would be doing it still if my front tire hadn’t popped again. I have to get whole new tires for the bike now, instead of just inner-tubes, so the biking is probably out until the summer; or until I win the lottery, you know, whichever comes first. All I have to do now is to find somewhere that I can bring my recycling because we don’t have a collection at the house. I’m feeling now that I’m finally able to be the person that I really want to be, and it’s so wonderful. I’ve even been thinking about how wonderful it would be to have back in my possession all of the things I’ve been storing at my parents’ house in Florida. I know I’m not ready to stop moving around yet, but it would be nice to get a place where I could decorate a living room or something. Oh well, all things in time.
I’ve signed up for an email called The Daily Love, and it’s been so inspiring to me along with my friends Kate and Julz. I’ve started writing again and I’ve been sending love and messages to all the people that I can. I really think I’m growing in this way, and I’m really proud of everything I’ve been able to accomplish, even just in this past month. I have a lot more to do, but I’m so happy with where I am. I feel like such a grown-up. Haha. It’s like I’ve only gotten better at pretending.
For example, you know that feeling when you’re a little kid and your mom lets you pump the gas or hand the cashier the money and you pretend like you’re all grown up. When I go grocery shopping or to the bank or cook dinner or do laundry, really just anything that involves responsibility, I feel as though I’m a little kid pretending to be grown-up. I feel like I’m dressing up in grown-up clothes and doing such a good job. I literally get giddy with my excitement. You might see me gloating and ask me what I did that day that was so fabulous, and I’ll tell you proudly, I did errands. That’s right! Errands! Hurray!!! The seven year old in me is giggling madly with pride.
Warning: Digression
I want to write a book. I’ve decided that I might be able to meld together a few of my writings to make a cohesive storyline from a few different perspectives. I’ve written about various bits of my life from various points of view, and I figure, since they’re all on a timeline, and they don’t overlap, I can merge them as different chapters or parts in one story. I think it would be interesting. We’ll see what happens… but I’m going to go work on that now. I hope you’re having a wonderful time, whatever time it is and whatever it is you’re doing with that time. I love you. More importantly, I love me. Most importantly, I love love. Good night. <3
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
