Just Like K'Nex

Today was my first day of school...and that's all I'm going to say about that. I also have to work the evening shift now because I got stuck with all day classes, joy of all joys. Anyway, I was sitting here, bored out of my mind, and I started to think about the past month or so. Every once in a while I will read my entire blog from least to most recent entry and I noticed that something happened to me over this past winter break, something good. I feel like I'm finally slipping back into a person that I once was. A person that I am much more at home with and a person that I am much more honest with. I know that this sounds crazy and I'm sure by now you all think that I am borderline multiple personality, but I don't know how else to describe it so that's that.

This is an entry from my old blog dated 5/31/2004:

Day Dreaming. Reality vs. Reality.

I have this dream, this wish, to do something meaningful and important for the world. I know I have it in me, I know there's something I'm supposed to do, I just can't figure it out. It is because of this that I've always looked toward careers that involve helping people like a doctor or a psychiatrist, but do I want to do these things for a living? There is this fire inside of me, this ambition, I don't think I could sit in an office all day for the rest of my life. I need excitement in my life, danger. After realizing that I want to travel, experience differnt people, experience different cultures, learn different languages, I feel lost, like there is no place in this world for me. Perhaps I could work for national geographic, perhaps I could join the peace corp, perhaps perhaps perhaps. I want to do everything, I want to be everyone. So...what do I do?

I decided to share this because I'm starting to feel this way again. But, now that I have this feeling again, a feeling that once scared me more than anything, a part of me I can never seem to understand, I feel more at peace with myself than I have in a very long time. Maybe I am just ready to accept that thats just who I am, uncertain and always willing to try anything in order to extinguish the firey doubt that lives inside of me. If and when I even do extinguish that doubt I am left with the damage the fire had already done to me and I temporary fill that space with something new until new doubts set that on fire. This may not be the best way to describe it, but this is how I roll. Maybe I'll never be completely happy or content with my life but this part of me is also the part that pushes me to experience and try as many things as I possibly can and I think that when I die I'll be able to say that I had a truly fulfilling life...because it was always good, but never good enough...that could be something.

Give Me A Window

It's cold. The tips of my fingers are numb. This feeling always brings me back to the window above my bed. I open the window with haste, I can't sleep and I'm longing for a gust of cold night air to collide with my skin. I quickly take a deep breath, inhaling the innocence of the night for the fleeting moment when the stale air of my room is replaced with something that is far more real to me. I am never sure of what it changes or how but I know that it's there and I'm always waiting for it, always hoping that it finds me. I close my eyes and let the silence craddle my thoughts as the wind flirtatiously dances with my hair. My mind clears, the thoughts and dreams that were torturing me have finally faded and I can hear that song now. I start to sing as the window becomes less and less stationary. Piece by piece I am slowly drifting away from this place, perpetually searching for warmth in a world consumed by this chill that I constantly feel. It's been years now and its getting harder and harder to find it, if I ever attained it at all. With every passing winter my window raises higher and higher but the ground is much closer to me than ever before. That ground scares me more than anything and I'm barely escaping it these days. I've always known that one day I will eventually fall and when I do, I'll hit hard. Though, that fear will never be enough to prevent me from opening my window. There is something much stronger inside of me that gives me the courage to search and to find the opportunity to fall. I can only hope that when I do the ground is only a few feet below and that theres someone there to catch me. So here I am, eyes closed and cold always waiting for something or someone to embrace me with their warmth, to catch me when I fall, to walk beside me on that ground. Reality finally sets in and I close the window, but the goose bumps on my arm don't ever seem to go away...

I Have Magical Powers

Top 10 Reasons Why I Love American Idol

1. Simon
2. Paula Abdul high on pills 98% of the time
3. People that can't sing
4. People that can't sing but think that they can
5. People that can't sing and only go on the show for their five minutes of fame(embarrassment)
6. People that can sing but totally fuck up the words of the song or just forget them completely
7. People that can sing but are too, shall I say it, hideously ugly to compete (I feel bad for you ugys, I really do)
8. People that get extremely mad once they are rejected, especially the ones that don't seem to understand why they were rejected in the first place
9. People that keep singing and won't leave once they are rejected
10. People that can't sing and obviously have some sort of mental problem

This is cruel, haha, but it's the truth

School Days...Rule Days...

School is only a few days away and needless to say the frequent entries will soon come to an end. This semester should be fun though. I don't have any upper level biology courses this semester to torture me along with my Vet courses. Not to mention my clinical procedures for large animals class has its lab on a farm. Yes, haha, a farm. I will be spending every Wednesday for the next three months on a farm learning how to administer shots, draw blood, float teeth etc of all the animals I'd rather be at home eating instead of fighting, except horses, I don't think I could eat a horse. Note the word fighting is used here instead of helping, they don't want you to help them and they will do anything in their power to prevent it. Either way, my love for helping animals has its limits, and spending all day on a farm wrestling pigs might be one of them, we'll see. Its just unfortunate that large animal medicine is on the state boards, so I have to learn it. Though, you never know, the knowledge I gain from the farm might come in handy some day. However, if any of you notice that I start chewing tobacco, spitting into tin buckets, chewing on straw, wearing overalls and speaking with a southern accent, please tell me.

*sigh*

I don't want to go back. This is the problem that I have with school, it is too routine. When I slip into a routine and it is consistant for too long I start to feel robotic and therefore depressed. This is definitely one of those instances where I just contradict myself completely. For a person that hates change, I also desparately need it in my life. I need excitement, danger and everything in between. This is why I will work at an emergency hospital. There is so much emotion in an emergency hospital setting, so much hard work, so much struggle, so much sadness...I belong there.

Blessed By Burdens

I saw Freedom Writers the other day, great movie. If you like Dangerous Minds you will definitely enjoy it. There was one part in particular in the movie that really got to me. Hilary Swank is talking to her father and he says to her, "You've been blessed with a burden". I had never heard anyone say that before, blessed with a burden. It just made me think, what if I felt blessed by my burdens instead of well, burdened by my burdens. I thought about this a lot and I finally came to the conclusion, if anything, my burdens give my life purpose. The things and people that I am responsible for give me purpose. Its amazing how just thinking about that made me feel a little less weighed down by certain things in my life. In a way, it made me feel good. If I didn't have those things, those burdens, what would I have? What would I do with myself? Would my life be meaningful at all?

And so, for now, I am grateful for the burdens that I have.

Time Machine

I was walking to my car the other day and our neighbor, this 50 some yr old woman, starts to talk to me. I hate it when this happens, I just want to get in my car and go. Though, while I was trying to pay attention to whatever it was that she was talking to me about I noticed that she had the same exact reading glasses as I do or at least my old ones, I got new ones for christmas. Either way, this freaked me out. I suppose I am just going to have to one day accept the inevitable truth that I am a 50 yr old woman trapped inside a 20 yr olds body. I often think that I was just born in the wrong time period. I think I belong back in the 20s/30s when there was swing dancing and people were actually polite to each other. I just don't get people these days. Nobody has any respect for anyone. The thing that bothers me the most is that it just seems like most people lack the ability to love or even empathize with other people. Nobody cares about anyone but themselves. And so it leaves us to slamming doors in each others faces, bumping into each other on the street, constant contact, yet, we are all so disconnected.

I am also guilty of this. In fact, I'm sure that I lack most social skills that I am suppose to have acquired by now. However, I will always hold a door for someone and I will always say excuse me if I'm trying to pass someone on the street. I may be completely awkward when thrust into social situations, but at least I am polite.

Strand me on an island any day, away from these people, really...a log cabin in the mountains even sounds nice.

It's funny...I was watching a comedian the other day and he made a really good point. He said the squarer the shape of the state, the more boring and desolate it is. Perhaps I should move to Wyoming or North Dakota...Anyway, I was laughing hysterically because Maryland is the most fucked up looking state of them all, haha, and here I am. I don't know, I guess I fit in here, I'm definitely squiggly around the edges.

Never The Same

I have always pondered the whole nature vs. nurture thing. Being raised as a twin was a constant struggle for my own identity because as long as I could remember people had been erasing me by dressing me in the same exact clothes as my twin, same hair cut, same birthday presents, same everything. Always to the point where I felt stripped of my individuality, my uniqueness, not to mention toys that I actually had an interest in. Everyone just assumed that since I was a girl I had to like Barbies and that since Nicole really liked them than I must too. I hated Barbies. Except my Little Mermaid doll, she was cool (note how I used the word doll here, not Barbie). A good example of this goes back to my 5th birthday. Nicole and I were fighting over the theme of our party. She wanted a Barbie party and I wanted Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Way cooler than lame ass Barbie if you ask me. Anyway, my parents made us compromise, so we had Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles decorations and a Barbie cake. I ate her head.

Either way we were different and because everyone always wanted to make us the same I was constantly looking for ways to separate myself from her. It's just amazing how young I can remember being and thinking this way, it started early for me and has been one of the few constants in my life. Nicole and I were raised by the same people, in the same way, yet, we are two completely different people and we have been since birth. Its when I think about this that I truly believe in souls.

The weird thing about it though is that it never really seemed to bother Nicole. She liked being close to me like that, always wanted to do everything with me and I would push her away because I felt so suffocated. I think she had a lot of issues with me because of that, I hurt her feelings a lot and we fought constantly for as long as I can remember or at least since the point I decided I didn't want to be, in any way, defined by her. I don't know, I have been thinking about my childhood a lot lately. Every once in a while it will resurface to torture and confine my thoughts.

Endlessly Restless

I'm feeling extremely restless lately. Whenever I start to feel restless I become impulsive. When I become impulsive I start to make rash, bad decisions. My impulsive behavior is evident merely by the number of piercings that I have, not to mention my morbid addiction to pain and all its forms, but that is a minuscule example of only some (11 to be exact) instances where I was feeling restless and desired some sort of change.

I've been trying very hard to keep myself occupied during my break. However, I was under so much stress and for so long that I somehow became comfortable and now I'm finding it extremely hard to reach that amount of stimulation, so I feel bored. This...is a bad thing. So, for the next couple of weeks I'm going to try even harder not to give in to my addiction to adrenaline.

Tonight I'm going to Sonar so hopefully this will fuel my need for excitement via lots of liquor and the random rub off a complete stranger until next semester starts. Though I doubt it. The fact that I'm going to Sonar while feeling restless probably isn't the best start to giving up adrenaline, but I'm sure it will be fun anyway :)

Responsibility

Today my mom is having some serious surgery done and so it is left to me, the eldest sibling and therefore second in line to assume the alpha female role of my pack, to once again temporarily fill the shoes my mother will inevitably leave to me hopefully much farther down the road than today.

I don't mind doing this for my family, in fact, I often assume this position even when it isn't necessarily required of me, especially when it comes to my little sister. This always makes me wonder about the exact moment in my life when I made the decision to take on this role. I was born 1 minute before my twin...its amazing to think how much our lives can change in just one minute of its entirety...However, I like to think that it is more than just that one minute of my life that separates me from her.

There are many times from my childhood that I can remember willingly and knowingly sacrificing my innocence and naivety. I never really fought for it, I just sort of accepted my fate as the oldest and I can honeslty say that it was that choice that has made me the person that I am today. For example, it was always a huge deal when I was very young as to which one of us would get to lay in front of my mom while watching TV and who would lay on her butt. Nicole always wanted to be the one to lay in front of her and I would never fight her on this, I would always willingly give up my right to equally share that spot because I knew it would make her happy. This also goes along with the battle of who got to sit up front whenever we would drive anywhere. Nicole would throw a fit and I would feel bad and say, "It's ok mom, she can sit up front, I don't mind." Sometimes my mom would force me to sit up front with her or lay in front of her, just because I was never willing to fight for it...I truly believe that it is because of those moments in my life, even from such a young age, that I have gained the amount of respect from my parents that I have now. The thing about it though, the thing that bothers and haunts me the most, is that I did mind, I did want to sit up front, I did want to lay in front of my mom...But that want was never a good enough reason for me. My own want wasn't worth upsetting Nicole and putting my mom through the stress of hearing her cry about it, I loved them both too much for that...So, I sacrificed my own happiness for them...I was so young then but never fought for the benefits that go along with being so young and I don't know why...

Anyway, when my mom comes home today she will be in a lot of pain, and for weeks, and won't be able to do much. So, my dad came to me, even though he knows he doesn't have to, and asked for my help around the house and things. I said, sure of course, not a problem. Meanwhile Nicole is a few feet away in the other room sleeping on the couch...and I thought, I wonder if she appreciates or even knows what it is that I have given her...But then my dad placed his hand on my back, leaned in and whispered in my ear, "Thank you honey", kissed my forehead and walked away...and I thought...

Yesterday

So yesterday I had off of work, I was very excited all weekend that I was going to have Monday off, such a great day to have off. Whenever I have off on Monday I feel like I have somehow cheated the rest of the week and it tends to go by much faster. I was planning on sleeping in, cleaning my car, and then watching some movies for the rest of the day. Instead, I woke up abruptly at 5am. This is when the vomiting started and it did not end until 4pm. There were times yesterday that I really wanted to die. As I set up camp in my bathroom and became very acquainted with the tiles on my bathroom floor and the various shapes and figures they can make, I realized a very familiar feeling was with me all day and didn't cease to exist until I was able to keep down water. This was the feeling of defeat. Life has this way of just blatantly slapping me down. Yesterday was very humbling indeed. Life-"No, you will not have a comfortable relaxing day off, instead, you will puke all day and therefore have ample time to feel completely helpless and not in control of your life at all." Which brings me to the weird thing about defeat, when it comes to me at least.

There have been many times in my life when I have felt absolutely defeated. However, there is always this part of me that is awakened at the sight of defeat and reminds me that I won't feel this horrible forever, things will get better, things will work themselves out one way or another even if you can't see how or why right now. This part of me contradicts how I am naturally, which is completely pesimistic most of the time. But...somehow I always find that slightest bit of hope and that can last me for a long time, consider me a hope camel. Whenever I have these feelings of hope or faith I cling on to them for dear life. So, I am thankful that yesterday when I really wanted to just give up, asperate and die that I had those few hopeful thoughts that I wasn't going to be sick like this forever, just a few more hours of this and I will be ok again.

I will never take those gleaming and glittering feelings of hope during times of despair for granted, they keep me going.

Save Me

Lost in a deep sea of desire
You hunt me in these waters
I can't tread these feelings forever
Eventually I will drown in you

You constantly cast me into the deep end
I shiver in your dark and cold places
Your warmth is too deep for me to reach
Save me from this storm

Dry land and shelter taunt me
But this is where I choose to stay
My pain is my comfort
My struggle is my purpose

One day I'll swim to shore
Leaving myself with you in that sea
I won't have my pain to guide me
But I'll have the warmth of the sun

The shade of the trees
The air in my lungs

~I actually write a lot of poetry, however, I am even more critical when it comes to my poems than I am when it comes to my writing. So, in efforts to be more brave, I decided to post this.

Emotionality

I consider myself an extremely rational person. However, I constantly contradict my rationality with the amount of influence I allow my emotions to have on me. This contradiction may or may not be obvious...My emotion has always been something that I am very skilled at hiding, even when it comes to posting on this blog. There are probably more drafts saved on this account then there are actual entries. I am confident in my ability to erase, to hide. I'm very cautious and this caution comes from fear and the inability to trust, even myself. I'm constantly searching for the reason I am the way that I am, perhaps not even a reason but a course of events. I also continually search for answers to questions that don't have a solid answer...

Lately I have this urge to let go of everything and just be. If only it were that easy for me to let go of all of my flaws, my insecurities, my fears. I have always kept them so close to me, I never give myself a break. Somehow I find comfort in all of those things. They are my crutch, they make me human. I wonder though, whether it is a good thing or a bad thing that I constantly focus on parts of myself to improve one way or another. I need to find the courage to be happy with myself, accept who I am in the present and allow myself to change when the time comes. If you constantly search for something you're going to miss the things that happen naturally, without any effort.

I should be happy with the person that I am right now. It's pointless to strive for perfection 100% of the time or even at all. I know that I will never be perfect, but I'm a good person and that should be enough. I feel the most fulfilled when I'm taking care of someone I love and the emptiest when I have disappointed them somehow. I am always willing to sacrifice myself one way or another for those people and I'm starting to wonder if this has something to do with my feelings about my own self worth. I constantly feel like my purpose in this world is to make others happy and to do whatever I can to help someone when they need to be helped. I have no idea where this desire comes from inside me, but its there and always has been. A lot of the time I wish I didn't possess those feelings of extreme empathy. I wish I could walk down the street and not feel sorry for the homeless people that I see, I wish I could ingore what's happening with the war and all of the people who are suffering and dying, I wish these things didn't consume me the way that they do. It's like 'the nothing' in A Neverending Story. There's too much sadness here...

Jack Frost Where Are You?

I never thought I would say this...but...where the hell is winter?! Trees should not be budding, it's friggin January for Christ's sake. This is really messing up my yearly routine. It should NOT be 55-60 degrees right now. Don't get me wrong, I love warm weather, in fact, I hate the cold. However, during the winter I tend to fuel my creativity with a lot of reading, writing, drawing, playing my guitar etc because I really don't want to go outside and there's not much else to do. And now I feel completely thrown off balance, more so than usual. I have this feeling about me like everything has been meshed together, unnaturally. I like the changing of the seasons because it gives me a concept of time, not only of the present, but of the past and future as well. I want it to snow so I can go outside and roll around in it (for a very brief amount of time, then I'll enjoy it from a distance) and remember all of the times we turned my front porch steps into a ramp, or all the times I busted my ass trying to make it from the Poly parking lot to the school building (damn those city schools for their lack of available salt), and to feel the excitement of the possibilty of getting out of school. I miss these things right now, in fact, I crave them. I want to walk outside and smell the cold crisp air, I am tired of the smell of rain. I'm seriously considering permenantly wearing my pajamas inside out until I see some changes. I'm that desparate.

See. I Told You.

Truth

Here are a couple of entries from my actual journal, not dated, but a month or two ago I suppose...I'm trying to be courageous, can't you tell?

I trip over my thoughts and my words even in my day dreams of my confessions to you. I wish I had the courage to turn these dreams into reality. It's so hard when I don't know how you'll react, what you'll say. I have this fear of seeing terror in your eyes, a loss I could not handle. It's easier for me to imagine your words for you. It's easier for me to imagine your lips on mine, your hands through my hair. It's easier for me to imagine that you love me back.

Though, these day dreams are starting to haunt me. You haunt me in a way you'll never know was possible. You'll never know how my heart beats for you, how I long to see you, how I can't feel the air in my lungs until you look at me. You look at me, your eyes, I fear that you see right through me. Right through to my heart where you've found a comfortable space. Then you smile, a smile that lights up my spirit, a smile that I'd die to see. You make me feel alive. An aliveness that brings me so much sorrow. Sorrow because I know I can never truly fulfill it. You stab me with your beauty. It's an overwhelming pierce to my heart with every quizzical glance. With my love for you goes hand in hand my pain. I never knew true heart ache until my soul woke up in love with you.

I'll carry this burden of love for you...I'll keep it close to me as you are close to it. I never knew this place existed in my heart until you gave it purpose. I love you. I hate you...I love you...

And a little while later...

So another day passes and I can slowly feel myself drifting away from my love for you, my love of the day dreams I have of our coalition. Though, I feel excruchiating jealousy towards the person who will get to have you. The person that gets to take care of you. The person that can make you happy in a way I wish I could. This jealousy runs deep, I can feel it, flowing through my veins, it burns me with every flirtation. I never knew a jealous monster existed in my being until I met you. It seems like I will carry this pain with me until the day I die. I must have been your true love in another life and God's ironic sense of humor has merely placed me as your friend in this one, how unfair. I can only hope one day you will notice the indescribable and unconditional love that I have for you. It seems so timeless, yet, time plays the role of the antagonist in this story. I wish you could see past my physical...See my heart, see my soul and then you will see how perfectly we fit together. You complete me in a way I never knew was possible. You level me, you ground me. I never knew the sadness that is born from something you can't have, but something that is so close, until I met you. You're wonderful, you're awful, but I love all of you and I love the things I haven't even discovered yet. Why can't you see it? Why can't you acknowledge it? I don't have the courage or the strength for this...I can only hope that you do...

I'm starting to think that I am too much of a romantic for my own good. I need to snap out of this and go with the flow like the rest of the fishes out there...