A Battle as Old as Time Itself

I don’t ever in my life wish to assume that being a parent is an easy task.  It’s a parent’s responsibility to bring up a tiny infant person and make them into a responsible, flourishing adult some day.  They have to keep them safe, they have to teach them right and wrong, and they occasionally have to make them eat their fruits and vegetables. 

There are a lot of people that I know, who have come to believe that I cannot possibly have been the easiest child to raise.  I’m a very independent person, I keep to myself, I like to do things on my own, and I like to do things my own way.  I will jump off the cliff as many times as I possibly can before I go to an instructor and ask if he or she can help me find an easier way down.  Naturally, this leads to me making many foolish mistakes, angering some people, and usually doing much more work than I would have had to, had I just asked for help sooner. You can call it pride if you want, but I call it learning.  I can honestly say that I have never been arrested, come anywhere close to commiting a federal offense, nor have I done half of the things most kids my age get into.  I got a few “C’s in high school.  And that is what most of my punishments growing-up were for. In my own personal opnion, I am still college bound, I am still alive, and I’m still a good kid despite all the temptations around me despite a few average grades.

Many a brilliant human being that has worked in careers involving children has, in some form, said “It’s not what we can teach our children, but often what our children can teach us.” As hard as it seems for parents to grasp this context, by age sixteen we really do have full-functioning brains of our own.  We are capable, because of our parents, to make good decisions, and decide for ourselves what is best.  We do stupid things sometimes knowing they are dumb, but if it’s a choice we want to make, good luck stopping us. 

Parents are not supposed to be your friends.  I believe that there is a thin line to cross there.  Most kids I know want to be able to tell their parents things, but they are afraid of being punished, or being told how to do something, or what they should have done instead.  They want to be able to cry on their parents shoulder about a break-up without being told “I told you so,” or given some drawn-out lecture about things they themselves already knew. 

“If you knew it was a bad idea, then why did you do it?”  This one is my favorite.  Oh I don’t know mom and dad, when you broke a lamp playing soccer at age thirteen, I bet hiding it seemed like a good idea to you too.  Can you tell me what your reason for throwing out your sisters favorite doll clothes was?  I bet your reasons seemed pretty solid to everyone but your parents at the time too. 

We will always need our parents.  I’m not trying to disclaim differently.  They are smarter only because they have truly gone through every same aspect in life we ourselves are coming up to experiencing.  And though they only mean to warn you about avoiding the bad stuff and help you with the good, a lot of the time they go about in a completely wrong way of carrying out those good-intended actions.

The battle between parents and teenagers or young adults will always be a constant fight.  There are parents that are pushy, that try to live their dreams through their children, that need to have something spectacular to brag to the other parents about, that talk bad about their children, that always push them to be more and do more than they themselves want to do or be.  And there children who want to please their parents and will do things they hate just to make them happy, children who will rebel authority, who have their own dreams and are determined to follow them, who let every decision be made for them, or who get into criminal offenses or a bad group of friends despite the words from the wise.  There may never be a perfect example of child understanding parents or vise versa, but the key is to decide wisely how much you care about what other’s think of you, be-it that group of moms at the church or your group of friends in school, and how much your decision that others may not approve of mean to you.

I’ve chosen to try my hardest in life at the things I choose to do, despite anyone else’s blessings, and if they truly love and support me, they will cheer me on no matter what those choices happen to be. 

With Wisdom Comes Years

I remember one specific Saturday, about eleven years ago: it was early in the morning, say maybe seven, and I was up-and- running.  I ate my cereal while I watched a few cartoons, went downstairs and made a few fairy dolls, played some barbies, had a sandwich and a juice box for lunch, went for a dip and game of mermaids in the pool, got out, dried-off, and laid in the grass.

While laying in the yard, I remember my mom yelling out the screen door that dinner would be in a few minutes, and that I wasn’t allowed at the table in my swimsuit so I’d better run and change if I wanted anything to eat. I remember wondering what in the world I was going to do after dinner.  I had already done everything that day that I could think of, why was this day taking so long to be over with?

I wish for days like that now.  My days off work seem to fly by, where as when I was younger the suckers seemed to have no end.  I used to get bored easily, now I can’t seem to find enough time in my day to do everything on my list.

I never believed people when they said that the older you get, the faster the years seem to go, but it’s true.  Especially on the good days. 

I was driving in the car this morning and I passed a lot of different people, all distinctly much older than myself, and I wondered, what it felt like to be forty or fifty and to know that your life was already half- over. I wondered that if I asked any of those people for a grade of their life up until that moment, what kind of answers I would receive.  Are they satisfied with their pasts?  Did they accomplish all they’d wished they would up till now?  What was the number one thing, if they were given the chance, that they would change, and what would they leave exactly as it was? 

Of all the lives there is for one to live, I have always wanted only one version.  A home, a faithful husband, children, horses, dogs/cats, and a large green yard for them all to enjoy.  

As perfect as that all may sound, there’s always dirt in life that you can’t avoid; arguments and differences with friends or family, deaths, accidents, sicknesses, weaknesses, and etc.  My grandparents and parents always said to me “with years comes wisdom,” but I agree only to a certain extent.  Yes, as you age you experience more and learn more, but more so that with that wisdom comes years.  I don’t exactly know how to describe to you the difference that I see between those two sayings, but there is a distinction to be made between them.  They don’t, as similar as they are to one another, say quite the same thing.

To me, it says that at any age we are capable of learning anything and everything there is to know about life.  And as we get older, the things we experience are essentially the same, just put within a different setting.  Kids were mean on the playground and kids will be mean in high school.  Some bosses sucked when you worked at the local DQ and others in your later career will be the same.  Decisions between candy needed to be made when you had only quarters as profit from your lemonade stand, and decisions between name brands and generic can be difficult when you allow yourself half a paycheck to go shopping.  The harder you work, the more you can receive.  Friends come and go, boys come and go, and the world keeps turning a full circle no matter what is happening at the present time. 

  With the wisdom you’ve always had comes only more years to use it wisely. 

A Written Riddle

And I remember thinking... if only I could write as neatly as a computer.

I was sitting in lecture last week, when my pofessor instructed us to gather into groups to answer the questions that he had put up.

I did as I was told, and grouped-up with two other girls.  One girl tore out a piece of paper and set it in the middle of the table.

“Who wants to write?”

...this is always a problem when a group of people is required to work together, and hand in only one sheet of loose-leaf paper.

Obviously, the girl who had torn-out the paper felt that by designating a sheet from her personal notebook, she had already contributed her share to the group. Why else would she have asked who wanted to be the scribe, so to speak, if she had had any intention of doing it herself?

Sometimes, you get lucky.  You get into a group and one kid at the table whips out his or her notebook, a pencil, and writes everyone’s names at the top of the paper, and poise, looking around at all of you with thier pencil just above the sheet ready to write, signifying their full intent on donating the paper and doing all of the work.  Most the time, if not all, you’ll find the reason being that these people don’t trust other group members to do the job correctly.  I don't honestly think I've ever had anyone complain about these people, for fear that mentioning so would lead to having to write.

As it was, the two gals in my group seemed to be friends, and I was the odd duck out.  It was clear to me that neither of them was about to pull out a pencil, so I "volunteered" as if I had the choice.

While we spoke and discussed I penciled in each persons' thoughts on the matter, forming their words into my own style of writing.  You know, how you hear someone express their idea in one way, and you write it in such a way as to twist their words to suite your own personal thought process.

Well paper-donator girl was watching me write down her verbal sentence, and exclaimed loudly,

“Woah!  You have really nice handwriting!”

I thanked her.  When we had finished and everyone was ordered back to his or her previous seats, I looked down at the group work I had written and gave a thought to what she had said.

I remember sitting in fifth grade, Mr. Nelson’s class, during a history project involving a large wheel littered with a made-up story.  It was a group project, and my job in the task was the final touch: to write the story on the board, and draw the illustrations.  

Well I took the project home that night, and I remember sitting at the kitchen table with it all laid out in front of me.  I drew the pictures first, so that I’d have enough room, and I later moved-on to the writing.  I remember erasing time and time again, hating the way that my words looked, how they “ruined” the board.  And I remember thinking... if only I could write as neatly as a computer.

That night, I wrote each individual letter with care, trying with all of my effort to write as if I had typed it all up myself.  It took me forever, and when I went to school the next day, I received so many compliments on my handwriting that I practiced the same method for everything I did that year.  In sixth gradeI kept my style but changed the way I wrote my letter “E” three times. Come seventh grade, I wrote everything in cursive because I felt it was faster, then switched back due to too many teacher complaints.

In eighth grade I wrote so small in an attempt to conserve paper that I had my teachers drawing magnifying glasses next to my scores, in fact, I can name at least four or five times that my style of penmanship has changed throughout my years of schooling, and I’m curious as to why that is. 

I can only decipher the neatness as being one thing:  My compulsive need to strive for perfection.

I can Depict my constant use of comas to define the difference in the way I think and write,

And I can tell by the amount of space in between my words just how much of a hurry I am in when I write something.

Although my time spent grading papers as a student aid my senior year of highschool has left me with the conclusion that men generally have the sloppiest handwriting,t is not just men that have bad penmanship. Women can write just as illegibly.  Why?  Why is no one style alike, and what does it say about the person? My mother, father, and sisters all have a different style than myself, so it’s not due to genetics.  It’s not something passed-on, nor something inherited.

So why after years and years does our individual handwriting look as it does?  And what does it define about us.

What does your handwriting, if anything, say about you?

The Many Faces of Faith

I used to go to church, and I used to love it.

The feeling of having something else to believe in, to have faith in, but life itself is unexplainable, it’s uplifting.

God is portrayed in many different ways in our society today, and he’s a touchy subject for some. 

They say that there are three different events in your life, three different times that you will give your heart fully to him, or believe in him even if you never have before.

1)   The birth of your own child.

2)   The death of someone you love.

3)   Your own death.

I never questioned God until I got to Junior High school.  My first year there was awful, and the years that came after the first proved to be as equally bad.  It was the first time I had ever realized just how mean people could be to one another.  I was picked-on and prodded.  It caused me to begin loosing faith in someone that could create people that treated others, that treated me, the ways they did.

Faith is to roll the windows down, chuck the directions, and deviate fearlessly from the origional plan. 

High school proved to be equally as bad.  I barley remember my first two years there.  I spent all my time keeping my head down, trying to avoid exsistance.  I was convinced that if people didn’t know I was there, they wouldn’t be able to find anything wrong with me.

About mid-junior year I met a boy whom, in the beginning, made my whole life worthwhile.  I felt loved, I felt accepted by his friends, I felt welcome in his home and loved by his family.  Being introduced to new people and new places, and escaping my sheltered little life once in a while, opened my eyes to the idea that there are a lot more people out there that I realized.  And they were good people.  My faith was re-built.

I’ll never forget standing in church that Sunday after he ended things.  I refused to sing, I refused to listen, I refused to participate.  My temporary sanctuary was gone, and I didn’t have anything left to believe in.  That summer I made mistakes, I stopped eating, I pulled away from anyone that I had been close too. I broke-off connections, new relationships, and let go of oppertunities until those people that I had let down found renewed faith in me, and convinced me to give faith one more shot. 

The only light in my life was the only thing that kept me trudging through it; my job.  I got through the day at school just so I could go to work and see everybody.  I was accepted when I was there, I was safe when I was there, I had friends when I was there, and I was good at something when I was there.  The only bad in people I encountered while at work was in the customers, and I found that with a smile and an apology, maybe a free pizza, I could fix that.  I could CONTROL something.  I could figure things out.  I was trusted with important jobs and could get them done better than was expected. 

The happiness attained from my job gave me the faith to keep going.

I could write my whole sob story on here but I doubt anyone has interest in reading it.  This blog is supposed to be about the definition of FAITH, so let's get down to the nitty-gritty question bouncing through my nervous system:

It’s a baby’s name, its an object, it’s an adjective, it’s a noun,
but what is it really?

What is it to you?

I would look it-up in the dictionary but to do so would be a waist of my time, because I believe that definition is wrong.  Faith is like the word “perfect,” it’s a universal adjective/noun/name/object/word/phrase whose definition refuses to apply the same to each individual persons lives. 

Maybe to you faith is hearing an uplifting song.  Or going into a test telling yourself you'll do fine.  Jumping out of an airplane with a parachute on your back, or talking to someone who has passed with the belief that they might be able to hear you. 

Faith is a name,

Faith is a feeling,

Faith is a wish,

To me, faith is something I can’t control completely, but my reactions to things can help it grow or fade dependant on how I let myself feel.  It's what keep me getting out of bed in the morning.  It's what keeps me trying to fix my wrongs and forgive other's. It's what gives me the strength to pick-up and move on when my efforts in life fail.  It keeps me looking for the good in people and accepting t hat there is always going to be bad, but the bad in people itself is another universal and personified definition that also means something different to everyone. 

Life is one big constant test of your faith in people, in events, in God, in anything really.   And the only way to get through it, is to have the faith that you can.  

To Live and Let Stand

"To remember and not yearn for the past, is to deny how you became."

Image borrowed from flickr.com

Just down the path is a pond that I used to go canoeing in at the end of every summer.

Off the edge of that pond is my second home as a kid.  I grew-up there with my best friend, and my second parents, who believed in anything I did.

In the next cul-de-sac is a house that another bestie used to live in, that I built forts in, played dolls in, and licked the bricks on the fireplace for a dare at a sleepover.

Behind my house is a park, newly renovated now, that we used to be spies in, where I played tagged, and found out that jumping off swing led to twisted ankles.  It’s where I got asked out by my first boy, and the paths around it are where I leaned not to rollerblade when walking your dog.

I have invaded the library down the road many boring summers.

The pool in my backyard has seen many games of Marco-polo and mermaids.

The sidewalk down the street watched me and a friend fly off my electric scooter.

The park a-ways-away has seen us crush berries and jump off stones, and creep on skater boys.

The pothole that forms every winter down the street has it out for the frame on my car.

The playground at my elementary school was dominated by the four musketeers many years ago.

The girl’s bathroom in that school up the hall from the lunchroom has seen the braveness of a janitor named Norm, as he rescued a helpless fairy doll.

The corners of those streets saw two young patrols, one a great captain, one always tricked into caller, keep its children safe.

The pizza shop up 42 saw an outstanding crew, and a group of friends and memories that were the sole reason I made it through high school.

A house in Lakeville saw a group of kids who needed a break form life once in a while, supplied by two people who always cared about them.

A dirt road in Prior Lake saw spinning cars one night, twirling around in the gravel with scared, yet excited passengers.

The taco bell saw them many nights after work.

A look-out called Trout run saw me through the times that I needed to be reminded that the world is so much bigger than me.

The caribou down the road is where I met with friends to talk about life.

And my bedroom is the picture of my personality, my sanctuary.

I could write so many more memories.  That flicker through my brain as I realize I’m leaving my home this summer. To truly move onto something new, somewhere new.

Everything I know, everything I love will always be in this town.

All my memories, all my pieces.   This place BUILT me.

And I don’t want to leave it.  Or the people it still has.

I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like, to not be able to come back to my old house in a year.  To not be able to walk in my own room.

I can’t walk into the pizza shop I loved nowadays without being told to leave  if I don’t plan on buying anything.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s just me that makes these kinds of connections with the places I’ve been, if I’m the only one who has this much trouble letting things go.

It seems sometimes, like it is just me.

Wake me-up, Arizona. 

“Your actions, not past, but present and future actions, and your actions alone, should determine who you are to people.  Not what is said of you by others.”

R.I.R(egret)

I hope everyone finds the irony in this sentence impeccably clear and easy to decipher:

“Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today.”

I am deathly afraid of Dying.

I was sitting in the Hayden courtyard at Arizona State a few days ago, a sketchbook in my lap and a lot on my mind. I thought about how my life is going.

Going on vacation across the country from all and any of your problems allows a person to sit back and look at them from very, very far away.

It is the best view.  

Your head is clearer, you're not pulled in the directions of the moment, and there is no rush to make an urgent decision on the matters at hand.

One of my good friends and I are not, at the moment, getting along so well.  In fact, we are not even talking.  Our friendship began falling apart when life for her became foggy and strings were pulled, tearing loose and falling apart. I noticed her moods change, I noticed her values change, I noticed her obligations take a different course even before the turmoil between us started churning. And I felt I was left behind while she moved forward in a new direction without me.  I’m not saying I need to be at the root of every decision, and first on the list to hear of news, but the things that go on in other’s lives are important to me.  I like being one they can talk to and come to for advice, and being cut-off so abruptly I just found myself missing her. 

I can’t help but wonder, if she misses me.

I have always said, and I feel others would agree: that I’d rather people feel indifferently about me, than hate me to the point of wanting nothing to do with me.

The situation made me think about all the connections I’ve made in my life.  Will it be enough?  Am I a decent enough friend that people would miss me if I ever were to end-up six feet under due to some uncanny event?

How would they remember me, talk about me when I’m gone.

Will they have good memories, good things to say.  Will they even bother to show-up for the funeral, or find better things to do?  Did I try my best to do enough good in other people’s lives?  Did I make positive connections with people, did I help them when they needed help, was I self-less enough to impact them in some way, shape, or form that they have the ability to care for me like I care for them.

Did I tell people enough that I love them.  Did I remind them enough how much they mean to me, that I missed or was thinking about them.

Was I a good Friend? A good Person? A good… Anything?

I love people, and at the same time, they drive me absolutely bonkers.

But it is people that make life here worth every second of every minute of every day.

And that, that is what I am afraid to leave behind me.

I am not worried about all the technology I’ll miss out on. Hell, I don’t even know how to use half of the stuff we’ve got now.

I’m afraid of missing out on my kids’ lives, my grandkids, their kids and grandkids.

I’m afraid of possibly gong into a second life without being able to remember all the people I love and care about so much in this one, without having them with me. Without knowing them. 

I’m afraid of the END.

I’m afraid of the end of friendships.

Of Family.

Of Experience.

Of Love.

Of Moments.

Of Time.

Of Life.

And though it’s something unavoidable.  Something so unbelievably out of my control. Who I am while I am here decides who I will be remembered as when I can be here no longer.

Though it may be pointless for me to fear something I can’t change, it’s even more pointless to change the fear of fearing what I cannot change.

Because it keeps me Living.

It keeps me Breathing.

It keeps me aware of what does and should really Matter.

Of who and what I want to BE.

And, for the most part,

It Keeps me Sane. 

Live, Laugh, Love, and Impact.  

It's plain. It's simple. It's all we've got. 

Coming HOME.

I'm sitting in the airport waiting for my flight to Phoenix, Arizona.  I had no problem getting through security despite all the new techniques that have been installed, and a nice old lady in a blue suit helped me read the screen to find and direct me to my gate. 

Now, I wait. I'm anxious to get there but the weather outside the window I’m seated by looks beautifully intimidating: gray in the distance with sun peaking through the clouds. It's the ever-changing Minnesota weather that brings me all the seasons and unpredictability. I'm headed for sun but it's decently warm today. Only a light spring coat is needed.

The airport reminds me a little of my high school. There's more diversity in these hallways than a global confrence. I hear Spanish, German, French, Aribic, Russian, and some other international dialect that I can't desipher being spoken in the seats around me. I see different cultural dresses being worn and foods being eaten. It's kind of cool. Like I've been thrown into a melting-pot of colors and personality. I can't help but wonder where everyone here is headed and why.

There's a man across form me who is sound asleep. Partly why I chose to sit here. He is dressed in a three-pice tux, his hair is combed and his shoes shined. Despite his exterior ambiance he looks beat to exhuastion. He has big bags under his eyes and he's frowning in his sleep. I wonder when's the last time he's been home.

Galmourous and exciting as it is to hop on a plane and discover somewhere new I couldn't do this all the time. I see little kids getting restless and crabby, teens bored and sleeping with thier iPods blasting, and adults exhuasted and busnissesmen stressed. This is no place to live out your life. I feel bad for him, the man sitting across from me. He almost gives you this sense of being lonley. I wonder if he has a family waiting for him in Pheonix, and he's just returning home from some kind of a business trip. Or maybe he just kissed his wife goodbyeand this is his flight to a conncection in Pheonix that is headed somewhere further. 

As fun as it is to sit on a plane and talk to the person next to you, to go out and discover the world, all the attractions, scenery, and cultrue it has to offer, to head off to new places and see all the new hings, I feel it's impecibly important to have someplce to come BCAK to.

A family, a home, a job, a pet, even weather. I'm excited to be leaving everything for a few days, to see a new state and the boy I have waiting for me across the country, but I'm even mor thankful to have a place to come back to. A place where my seeds were planted long ago and continue to grow. I'm excited to get home and lay in my bed, to be woken-up by my dog, forget to seal the toothpaste in my bathroom and to hit that pothole down the street that will eventually be the end of the frame on my car. 

“Home is where the heart is.” I dont care if you live in a penthouse in New York City, or a cardboard box in the middle of the sidwalk, where you come from will always be more important than where your headed. 

Fame And Un-Fortune

Work was impeccably slow tonight.  In fact the only reason i have time to do this right now is because I was sent home a half hour early. 

Borrowed from gossiphall.com

We get this thing at work called “load.”

Definition: Many large boxes of crap that employees like myself get to walk around and put in it’s rightful places.

One of the boxes always contains a heaping pile of magazines; everything from “People” to half-naked girls in precarious positions. Today, three of the cover stories had the feud going on between Miley Cyrus and her father... I’m not a huge fan of the Disney-kid-gone-bad celebrity.  So for my own entertainment, I flipped it open to read of her demise.

All three articles held the same main point; Billy Ray Cyrus blames the show “Hannah Montana” for collapse of relationships within his family. I don't have too much time to get into this, but I'll do what I can. 

Growing-up, I danced around my room and sang into a hairbrush in the mirror. I would dress-up and pretend to be a dancer for some famous singer, on a Broadway stage in New York City.  I would hold fake press-conferences with my friends, or wear sunglasses in public as a disguise to hide from the paparazzi. 

It was always fun pretending to be famous.  My life felt exciting and dangerous. 

But I doubt, in all honesty, that life in the spotlight is all that it’s cracked-up to be.  Raising families, traveling, marriages ending, drugs, money feuds, contract and music label fights, addictions, rehab, and the complete and total loss of any chance at privacy.  Your day-to-day struggles and worst moments exposed and published for all to read.  The mocking and judgment that those people endure is never ending.  And as nice as the money and the attention would be at times, all the other things you’d have to endure wouldn’t make any of it worth a cent. 

Sometimes I wonder, how it would feel to know that you left this world with a bang.  With people everywhere knowing your name, recognizing you, like Michael Jackson. Or Marilynn Monroe.  No longer here but recognized and known well after their deaths. For their talents and their stories.  

I feel compelled to make a mark somehow.  To leave a significant footprint of some kind.

But that footprint, that mark, will be something positive.  I wouldn’t want people to remember me as the once-innocent celebrity that was caught smoking a bong, or the girl who can’t seem to keep herself out of rehab for abusing substances (I used to be a fan, Lindsay Lohan.) 

They say “bad press is better than no press” In hollywood, but how is that promoting anything good at all? That’s not the kind of attention  I want to be remembered for. I’d rather live a long, happy, healthy quite life where no one but close family and friends knew me than to leave a negative legacy.

How to do it, how to become known, to become remembered, is a question all on it’s own.

Senseless Sensitivity

http://afizadayang.blogspot.com/2010/12/jealousy-is-hardest-emotion-to-hidejust.html

I’m talking about jealousy. 

You know, that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach and the back of your mind when a pretty little thing walks by and your guy turns his head to watch.

That internal doubt that comes around.  The feeling of self-consciousness.  The anger and heat that starts to form in your cheeks when your girl is laughing at  jokes made by a handsome stranger.

You ball-up your fists and bite your lip.  Walk towards them and slip your arm around her waist.  You lie, telling her you don’t feel good and you want to head out.  All the way home you question her about the man; what they talked about and how she knew him.  You bring it-up like some form of causal conversation.  You hear every word she is saying but you still feel like she’s hiding something from you, like you’ve been betrayed.

You start to become weary of every person of the opposite sex.  You start watching where his eyes roam in a public place, or begin to keep tabs on the places she says she is going.

Those little insecurities will eventually begin eating your nerves, and you’ll start small fights about things that don’t even matter.   You will convince yourself he or she is cheating before you even have any hard evidence to back your theory up. 

And slowly, your trust for them fades. 

You start doubting everything they say or do.  You check their email or go through their personal files- receipts, credit card statements, anything you can find.

Every move they make, every move by another girl or boy; becomes a threat to you.

You stop trusting their friends, the people they hang-out with.

This is all, the beginning of the end. 

From that first occurrence, your reaction to the situation can decide the way you treat your relationship from that moment on. 

And unless some dramatic event changes your outlook (you catch them actually cheating, you find something crucial while snooping..) you will continue to internally decompose the way you see your significant other, until they are nothing but unfaithful in your eyes.

I have always referred to jealousy as being a wasted emotion. I am, however, only human and I’ll admit, I have my moments.

I'll go to the mall with my guy and see girls who out-shine anything I might have. Be-it curves (god knows that's not hard ;) ), cute clothes, pretty eyes, or professional-looking hair styles that they didn't spend an ounce of energy doing. 

And I'll feel inferior to them.  

It is scary, to feel like something you love could leave you, or be ripped from your hands by someone else. Especially if you are acting based-off some sort of previous experience. 

But his constant reminders of his feelings for me out-wiegh any possibility of him leaving me for something he might think is better.  And I conciously choose to make little or no deal of the situation. 

The only way I see to possibly over-ride this common problem is by being honest with one-self:  your guy or girl is going to notice other guy or girls.  And they themselves are going to be noticed. 

If you don’t trust them to not do something about the situation, it may be time to look for another other.  But if you do trust them, then it’s only fair to them, and your own conscious, that you realize you’ve no reason to worry at all.

Jealousy is'nt a choice.  Your going to feel it, but how you act upon it is up to you.  It rears it's ugly head at the most unexpected moments and can take over your common sense in seconds.  So be cool, don't over-analyze the situation, and have a little faith in your gal or guy.

These words from first corinthians are commonly used as vows in weddings:

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." 

I like to think of them more as guidelines for all relationships.  Maybe if people started applying them before commitment, marriage wouldn't seem like such a big shocker for some ;)

A Soldier of Other Sorts

Summer of 2010

My grandmother's name is Kitty Holst.
If I were to make a list of things I've learned from my grandma, boy, you and I would both be here all day.
I remember shopping with my grandma on black fridays, how she always has a coupon for everything. How she would give us cough drops from her purse if we had a bad taste in our mouth. How she taught me all  the swearwords I know in Deutsch, and how she alone influenced me to take the language in high school. The over-the-top christmases she would spend months shopping for and decorating the Christmas tree every year. Her stories. Her hugs.  Her laugh. how she loved my craziness, how she encouraged my mistakes and appreciated how different I was from my sisters.  Those and many other things will forever and always be embedded in my memory.

About eight months ago my grandma was diagnosed with lung cancer.  She had many different types growing in her body and they gave her only four or five months to live.
The day I found out I went for a walk, not uncommon for me when something upsets me and I need to think things through.  I took my phone, sat on the bleachers at the park behind my  house and called my cousin Mikey.  I'm always able to talk to him about serious things like that.  He and I talked about the situation for a while, both of us unsure of what to do or what could happen. It felt unreal.  Cancer is just one of those things that doesn't make sense to you, until you are the one dealing with it.

I cried the next time I saw her, at Thanksgiving.  She was cheery as could be.  I gave her a hug and ran downstairs crying.  It was so hard to know she was sick on the inside when she didn't look any different on the outside.
At the cabin for Christmas I went running for my grandpa because she was screaming for him, crying and in what sounded like too much pain.  He went in there and sat by her on the bed, and asked me to shut the door.  Once more I held back tears.

I avoided calling my grandma for a very long time.  It was too hard to talk to her on the phone.  Because she sounded just fine over the line. There was nothing wrong in her voice. But I knew, in the back of my head, that she was sick.  Like a nasty little joke the telephone was trying to play on me.  So I avoided it.  My mom told me I'd regret it.  I'd look back one day and wish I had taken more time to chat with her.  And I felt guilty.  But I couldn't make myself pick up the phone.
Until, that is, about a week ago today.
I called her because I had no classes.  And she was delighted to hear my voice.  We talked for while, and she told me about having a lunch date with her friends, about some old times, memories she had. I cringed every time she brought up her treatments, like it was some casual topic of discussion. But when we hung-up I felt like a ten thousand pound piece of guilt had been lifted off my concious.  I only felt bad about not doing it sooner.

I am so PROUD of my grandma.  She has decided to go through kemo to buy more time.  Not for herself, not because she wants more days for her own, but because there are people that love her in her life that she refuses to let down.  She's fighting for her eight grandchildren. For her three children. She's fighting for her husband.  She's fighting for her family and friends, for her pastor and all the people that are praying for her.  I have never seen a person commit a more self-less act.  Because kemo is no picnic for her.
Since that day she was given four to five months, she has shown them up them by three or four more.  Just this weekend I was blessed enough to come home from work and see both her and my grandpa.  They stopped by before heading out to do some casino hopping with their friends down south.

I love my grandma, and words cannot describe how proud of her I am.  When I am older, my last memories of her will not be taken over by the fact that she was diagnosed with cancer. I will remember instead how she fought back stronger than the cancer could act.  Like a tiny, stubborn little soldier.
I will forever remember, how she is, and how she did, fight for her life.

Adapted Learning Inability

I'm sitting in the doctor’s office, waiting for someone to be done with a check-up.

In the waiting room with me is a little girl.

She can't be more than eight years old.  Her hair is messy, and her clothes don't match.  She's sitting on her mother's lap with her knees up to her chin and her arms around her legs, asking questions about the things she sees on the TV screen.  The pictures, the people, the products in commercials, anything she has the slightest bit of curiosity about.

This morning, in my psychology class, my teacher said something in his welcome speech that caught my attention.

He said that he was afraid for college students. 

Picture borrowed from lifeatdrtoms.blogspot.com

He had a fear that we had lost our desire to learn, that all those years of homework in subjects we had little interest in made us loose our imagination, our curiosity to discover what we do not yet know and our excitement to find the solutions.

And he’s right to worry, you know.

How many of us open a Biology book and think, THIS is going to be FUN.

... Not many.  We look at the bolded words scattered around the pages and think damn... I have a lot of flashcards to make.  Or how long is studying for this final going to take me.

We no longer hang our papers with good scores on the fridge at home, or rush off the bus to show our parents our report cards.  A lot of us just aren’t excited about learning anymore.  Somewhere in our twelve years or general education before college we had the passion sucked right out of us.

In college, it is hard to get excited about learning a subject that doesn’t pertain to your major without thinking “this is not how I wanted to waste 2 grand or two hours of my time." But every part of the world around us really SHOULD interest us. We have the opportunity to slow down our busy lives and take a good look at the different aspects within it; be it plants, rocks, literature, art, biology, or human anatomy.  And that is rare and is something we should enjoy. 

So why do we look at learning as more of a chore as we get older?  Why do we loose our interest in gaining all the useless facts and knowledge we can?

I think it’s safest to say that college kids run on caffeine and energy drinks and usually work two or three jobs. That leaves just enough energy to do as little work in school as we can get by with doing, while still recieving passing grades.

This is the only class I have where the professor encouraged us to act half our age.

I hope there are crayons and water coloring activities involved... I’ll have to check my syllabus.

Strangers

"I couldn't help but think to myself, just how much I love strangers sometimes."

A house has been left in my care for this past week. When I stopped by today I received quite the shock; there was a truck and trailer in the driveway, the garage was open and a man was walking around in the yard.

I wasn't sure what to do.

I walked slowly up the driveway with the mail and accidently scared the daylights out of him. I said hello and I introduced myself as the person watching the house. He said hello and introduced himself as the guy working on the house. I laughed and said it was nice to meet him. He returned the gesture.

I decided he was potentially harmless and went inside with lunch I had brought. I thought about how cold he'd looked working out there. I remembered how my mom used to make lemonade and bring it out to the guys who worked on our roof during the summer. I dug through the pantry till I found hot chocolate mix, whipped up a big glass, and took it out to him.

He looked shocked, but took it and thanked me. He took a big gulp, re-thanked me, and went back to work.

I went back inside. While I was feeding the pets I thought about how he might be lonely working outside by himself and decided I'd shovel the driveway again and give him some company.

I put all my gear on and went outside. I shoveled in silence for a little while, until he came back around to the front of the house. He laughed at me and said I was going a little above the call of duty. I l told him I was just trying to do a good job. We got to talking while we worked.

People cease to amaze me.

His name was Steve; he said it was an old-fashioned name because nobody is named Steve anymore. He's on his second failed marriage; both times his wives cheated him on. One wife was a traveling salesmen, and he told me that's the number one career known for un-faithful spouses.

He stopped at one point, he looked really embarrassed and said it was weird to talk with a complete stranger about something so personal, but also that people had told him talking about it would help. I told him that I didn't mind listening, and that sometimes complete strangers are the best people to talk to simply because they've no right to judge you and they don't know who you are.

He considered this and went on.

He finds himself now a single dad with two sons, one nineteen years old, and one eleven. He moved back to the cities to be around family for the support during the divorce. He had lived in Hawaii when he was nineteen, and said that he hates the cold so much that he has no idea why he ever moved back.

"Stay in school," he told me. He dropped out and became a carpenter, and he regrets it now. He likes knowing how to do all different kinds of things though, and when he is sent to a job they don't even tell him what it is he will be doing till he gets there.

I told him my plans for the future, how I wanted to go into interior design and architecture. For a little while he even let me follow him around. He showed me what he was doing on the house and how it all worked with the electric boxes and bricks. It was cool to shadow someone who works by hand with the things you may one day be designing.

He kept telling me I was going over the top taking care of the house. And when I started scraping off the car in the driveway he just shook his head and laughed. I explained my situation and how I was trying to kind of impress the people whose house I was looking after. How I figured going over and above the job given sometimes does the trick.

I stayed out there while he was packing up the trailer, fiddling with things in the garage till he was done. I wanted to give him a proper goodbye.

"Well Aimee, it was very nice to meet you."

I shook his hand and said it was nice to meet him too. He told me I shouldn't try so hard to impress people, that he thought I had a "good heart," and that I'd go far in life just being me.

I told him that I hoped everything going on in his life would get better; he said he believed it would all pan-out eventually.

Then, he got in his truck, and began backing out. I took his empty hot chocolate cup and headed inside. I couldn't help but think to myself, just how much I love strangers sometimes.

I don't think people understand my reasoning for wanting to be a bartender. I want to be the girl in the old movies that hands a beer to a customer and asks him why he looks so down. I want to lean with my elbows on the counter in my band T-shirt and my face in my hands and listen as he tells me his stories. I love being that person, that just listens without giving advice no one plans on following. Because sometimes advice isn't what people want. And half the time they wont follow it anyways. 

They just want somebody to listen to them. Without judging who they are. And today just further confirmed that desire. I never mentioned those plans to Steve, but I feel he'd have understood during our chat this afternoon.  It's funny, how a complete stranger can se more promise in you, and believe in you more than those that you've known your whole life.  The ones you expect that 'support' from. 

An afternoon well spent.

If I Had A Million Dollars

In the song the artists list-off houses, cars, outrageous animals and other things they would purchase or give away had they the money to do so.  They sound like grownup kids in a candy shop, with a million dreams to match every dollar.

I work, as most know, at an SA gas station in a smaller town and we sell lottery like the stars come out at night.  There's a flashing neon sign in our store window that runs the amount of each jackpot every few minutes. 

Work is really slow, in fact I'm writing this on my break as we speak, and I caught a glimpse that one jackpot, the Mega Millions, is up to 290 million dollars.

290 mill!  A week or so ago a customer told me that someone in New York had won 16 million on that same lottery.

I started thinking about purchasing a ticket myself.  What would I do with all that money though?  Business is slow and ideas began popping into my head.  
They say money changes a person.  We've all heard the stories of past lottery winners; quitting their jobs, retiring early to a private beach and then ending up in some dramatic scandal due to greed taking over their better judgment.  
Well, there's those people and then there's the little old couple in Idaho that wins a couple million and donates as much as they can to charities, while keeping there jobs and living a comfortable, humble life.

So what would you, or anyone do, with that kind of money? 

I know so many people with financial problems; loosing jobs, not being able to afford school, housing foreclosures, etc.  
I know someone who can't even afford his or her own divorce.  With our national debt and the economy down the toilet it's about all we seem to be able to think about.  People are more cautious about swiping that credit card. I know for a while I handed mine to my mother and told her not to give it back to me out of a streak of self-discipline.

I have a few ideas, of what I would do with such money.  People like using the phrase "If only," and I've remembered some things they have told me they’d like had they the money for it.

I would help my mother get somewhere warm, because the cold makes it hard for her to breathe.

I would give my dad any tools he needed to start-up his own computer business.  He's always wanted to be his own boss.

I would buy my friend Annie her own helicopter, because she's wanted to be a pilot since she was eight years old.

 I would buy my ex boyfriend the nicest, fastest car I could find.  I remember once when he told me that if he had a nice car he would be happy, because it's all he really ever wanted.

I would help pay for my friend Tyler’s college education, so he could get out of his house and start life on his own without the worry of debt.

I'd pay off my friend Jess's school loans, so she could start her life with her boyfriend comfortably.

I'd buy Lizzy a hamster, with an awesome wall-to-wall crawling cage, just because she's always wanted one.

I'd buy my sister Megan a dog or two, and donate some money to the human society in hope that it’d solve all animal cruelty problems and those sad commercials wouldn’t show up on my TV screen anymore.

I would help my friend Aaron start and design his own coffee shop… he’s a little addicted to the magic bean (:

And for myself, well I've always dreamed of traveling the world.  I'd pay off my college loans before bringing my boyfriend, and best freind, Peter, with me, to see the seven new and old wonders of the world together. 

 It would be great to win that 290 million, to think of all the things I could do.  Those are just a few of the things I’d do first.  
The things I really want, money, of course, can't buy me; new bones and lungs for my grandma, or a time machine to take me back with all the knowledge I have today. 

So what would you do, if you won all that money?  Is it really that easy to solve our problems, and the problems of the people we know?  For the longest time I've stood by the fact that money cannot buy happiness, and I continue to believe that. True, your life would be easier.  But most people's problems aren't about material objects, those objects just act as a comfort.  And as far as happiness goes, it's human nature to always want more than we can have.

I'll admit... I'm probably going to end up buying one or two tickets before I leave work today.  But for those of you that are mentioned in this blog, if I win the 290 million dollar jackpot, you be sure to keep me to my word.