“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.