“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.