so this is the new year

Prepare yourself for yet another introspective end-of-the-year blog, as I'm sure everyone you know that blogs has already written one.

Generally speaking, I feel the same way about New Years as I do about birthdays. It's fun to celebrate and make an occasion out of, but I never really feel any differently from one day to the next. I don't think anyone does, because change doesn't really work that way. Of course some things do change rapidly and over night, but when it comes to personal growth and the kind of change you're looking for at the end of the year, it doesn't. That kind of change takes time.

This year, for example, I feel like I've changed A LOT. Much more than I have in past years. A lot of people that were in my life at the beginning of the year aren't anymore. In most cases, I think that was an improvement, even if it left my Friday nights a little lonelier. Some of the people I lost, I'll probably never speak to again. I still miss my Uncle Russ every single day. It's been almost seven months since my family said goodbye to one of the best people I've ever known.

Others I miss more for the social aspect of having someone to do things with more than I actually miss them as people, mainly because they were never very good friends. Some of them I miss every day because they were very good friends for a very long time, but that kind of loss isn't permanent and the new year is potentially the perfect time to reconcile.

Beyond losing friends and family, many other things have changed for me this year. I met and fell in love with someone twice my age, something I never would have expected to happen. We've been together for five months now and I couldn't be happier about it. It's a little stressful being in a relationship that very few people approve of, but luckily, I don't need anyone else's approval to be sure of how I feel about him.

I started working at Taco Bell this year, for my first job ever. Having an income is nice but mostly it just assured me more than ever that fast food is not something I want to make a career out of.

I turned twenty one this year. This hasn't proven to be a hugely life-changing event, but it's something.

My life isn't everything I want it to be right now, but there are a lot of things about that I love. Well, maybe not a lot, but a few. Enough for me to be happy. There are a lot of things I want to change too, and maybe those will be my "resolutions," though I never really worry much about this. I don't think anyone needs the excuse of a new year to want to make changes or goals for their life.

Gandhi once said, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world," but I think it applies to personal change too. Whether it's changing something about yourself or something in your life, you have to make it happen. You can't wait around for things to work out. You have to make things work the way you want them to. In fact, I think THAT will be my resolution this year if I have to have one.

Instead of sitting around and waiting for shit to happen to me, I'm going to make my life the way I want it to be. I'm not going to use the excuse of waiting. If I don't change things for myself, I'll own up to that, but I have goals and ideas and things I want to do with my life and I will work on them. I will work on me.

falling behind

I feel like I lost the whole weekend. I'm actually kinda thankful to have only gotten three classes this quarter, what with work and trying to see Mike whenever I can too, plus still having stuff to do at home. It's a little hectic. I need to catch up on school stuff - specifically Geography, which I'm sitting in right now lol. I really want to do well this quarter, even if three grades aren't going to do much for my GPA. Progress is progress, no matter how slight.

My bright is too slight to hold back all my dark.

It's been far too long since I updated this blog. I've been posting a lot of mini spiels on Tumblr, which there should be a link for in the sidebar, though it's not like anyone really reads this anymore or ever did. That's beside the point though, because really, this blog is more for me than anyone else. Anything I write is more for my own benefit than yours because I've always been better at expressing myself coherently and saying the things I want to say the way I want to say them when I write them down than when I say them out loud. I'm so inarticulate out loud. I get flustered and embarrassed and awkward and frustrated far too easily and then nothing comes out right. Give me a pen and paper and I'll make a much better impression. Unfortunately, life doesn't work that way.

Anyway, things have been a bit crazy. I spend most of my time at school or work, some at home, and a little bit with Mike. Not nearly as much as I'd like but we both have busy schedules and too many things to do, especially lately. It still upsets me a little that so many people have such a hard time comprehending our relationship because of the stigma attached to large age differences. His age literally hasn't bothered me since the first few times we met in August. The only time I think about it now is when other people bring it up. I really haven't discussed it explicitly with many people, simply because I assume they will react a certain way.

The weather is beautiful today. I'm sitting in the Japanese garden at school now, killing time before my next class. I have a paper to write and a sandwich to eat so I think I'll do that and enjoy the crisp, clear day and try not to think about all the things that need to be thought about or done or planned out. Not yet anyway.

teen angst poetry.

Clink goes the bottle, into the recycling bin.
Clink, as it falls in amongst its friends.
Clink as he downs another beer, and another, and another.
Clink, clink, clink.

"burning out his fuse up there alone"

Just a few days ago, on June 2nd to be exact, my Uncle Russ was taken off of life support and left this world to be in a better place. Last Monday he suffered from an aortic aneurysm which caused a stroke and led to his death. He was in the hospital for a few days but complications from both of those events just put too much pressure on his brain and his body couldn't handle it. Words cannot begin to describe how much he will be missed and what a terrible loss this is for my family, because he was the most incredible man. I've learned more about him in the past week than I had ever really known, and it makes me sad to know how many people are going to miss out on knowing him.

He was a really hard-working person, even when he was a kid. Once he set his mind to something, he wouldn't give up on it until he got it done. He was always really proud of his work and loved to be productive.

He was a really funny person, always laughing and trying to make others laugh too. Literally every picture that I've seen of him in the past week shows him with a huge grin on his face. He was always smiling and laughing and that's exactly how I'm going to remember him. He was incredibly kind, and always first in line to help other people out. My mom and his brothers have both said this week that he would give you the shirt off his back even if he couldn't afford to do so. Whenever anyone in our family was in need of a helping hand, he was always the first person there. He was insanely generous.

He was a wonderful father. He had three daughters whom he would have done anything in the world for, and basically did. He and his youngest daughter were very close, as he was with a lot of people. One of his friends from work spoke at his funeral today and said something about Russ having more best friends than anyone he knew, and that most of them were in his family. He was constantly giving and never asked for anything in return. He lived to make other people happy.

Next month my family is going to scatter his ashes near Lake Havasu in Arizona because his favorite place to be was out on the water in his boat with the people he loved most. I miss him so much already. I've even been considering memorial tattoo ideas, though I don't know when I'll have the money to get one. We'll see.

"maybe that's all family really is..."

I've been wanting to write a blog about the concept of "home" for a while now, but a lot has gone on in the last ten days or so and I've gotten sidetracked. I'm really not even running on full steam or whatever right now either, but I want to write. I need to write. That's just the mood I'm in I suppose.

Two years ago, just after graduating high school, I moved with my parents into my grandmother's house. We'd inherited it after her death in 2007 and had been deciding between renting it out or moving in ourselves, and eventually my parents chose the latter. So we packed all our things and moved out of the house I'd done most of my growing up in. I had lived in three houses total at that point, but the most significant parts of my life before moving had occurred while I lived there. Looking back, I feel like it was my first "home."

Since then, for the last two years, we've lived in Moreno Valley. It's taken almost that long for me to make any friends that actually live out here, and I still often drive back to Orange County to see old friends and to stay at Ashley's whenever she's in town. Driving back to Orange County, specifically back to Tustin, has always felt like driving home. Or at least, it has until very recently.

There's a particular exit that has always felt familiar to me; it's the exit I always took on my way back home from Ashley's house when I still lived in Tustin. I haven't had to use it much in the last two years, obviously, but I was with her last week and we happened to drive that way and for the first time, it didn't feel familiar. It didn't feel like I was driving home anymore. It felt like any other exit on any freeway in any town. Any ownership I had previously felt, any familiarity, was gone. It was the strangest feeling, but it made me realize that Tustin is no longer home to me. It also made me realize that I'm really not sure where home is anymore.

The movie Garden State has a scene in which the two main characters discuss the concept of home and I feel that their conversation is particularly relevant to what I am trying to describe. Zach Braff's character, Andrew Largeman, has returned home to New Jersey for his mother's funeral, but he doesn't feel at home in the house he grew up in anymore. Sam, Natalie Portman's character, claims to still feel at home in her house and Andrew says,

"You'll see one day when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it's gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I don't know, but I miss the idea of it, you know. Maybe that's all family really is, a group of people that miss the same imaginary place."

I've always loved that scene and that last line, and I think in a way it describes exactly what I've been feeling. I haven't yet begun to feel specifically "at home" in Moreno Valley, even after two years of living here. I know this is my house, this is where I live, and this is where my family is, but I don't really feel like this is home. I also know that I no longer feel like Tustin is home either. Right now, I'm not sure where home is, but I do know where my family is. And maybe that's what family is for me.

"just go to the record store and visit your friends"

Music is such a crazy, magical thing. I watched August Rush tonight for the second or third time, and while I admit it's a totally unrealistic and fairly cheesy movie, I still enjoy it. There's a scene when Freddie Highmore and Jonathan Rhys Meyers meet in Washington Square Park and play guitar together, not realizing they are related. Freddie, as August/Evan, tells Louis (Meyers) about the concert he's meant to perform at and that he can't attend because something bad will happen. Louis says to him, "You never quit on your music. No matter what happens. Cuz anytime something bad happens to you, that's the one place you can escape to and just let it go." Though it's been said many times before, and perhaps with a bit more eloquence, Louis has got the right idea.

Music is one of the few things that almost always helps pull me out of a bad mood. Maybe not every single time, but it helps more consistently than anything else does. Music is the ultimate distraction, and probably the healthiest. When you have a heavy heart or a clouded mind, music can clear that up. You focus on the notes and chords and vocals and lyrics, and you forget whatever problems might be plaguing you, at least for the length of a song or album or live set. It offers the easiest escape without even having to leave wherever you are. Music will never let you down the way people can.

I've often wished I knew more about the theory of music - the keys and scales and all the things you're supposed to learn first. I know a handful of chords, and small parts of various songs that I like, and I can hold a tune pretty well, but I'm no musical prodigy. When I see movies like this, or meet people who have a true talent, it always makes me want to play more. People that can create music have such a beautiful thing going for them. Not only are you putting a part of yourself into some song, but you're creating the very escape that people are searching for when they listen to music. Maybe that's why people are so in love with certain bands, because they have so much appreciation for whatever that group's music has been able to help them through.

In the movie Almost Famous, Fairuza Balk's character complains to Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup) about the tour's latest groupies and says, "They don't even know what it is to be a fan. Y'know? To truly love some silly little piece of music, or some band, so much that it hurts." And that's exactly what it is- loving that band or that piece of music because it's the one thing you can turn to when no other answers are in sight. You can always turn to music.

Post Secret

I used to read PostSecret (here) every week to catch the new secrets and save the ones that moved me most. I probably have hundreds of secrets saved on various hard drives. I was always so disappointed if I forgot to check one week and missed out on new postcards. (There are no archives.) I haven't been keeping up with it at all for some time now, and I'd like to say that it's because I don't need it anymore, but I'm not sure that's true.

Frank Warren started PostSecret in 2005, asking strangers to mail their secrets to him in creative ways and letting him choose which ones to post online. Since then, five books full of selected secrets have been published, the first of which I own. I always put them on my Christmas list but books are less common presents in my house for some reason. I've always thought that Frank Warren's project was such a beautiful idea. I've only mailed in one or two of my own, but like many others, I've chosen to distribute mine on my own. On my eighteenth birthday, my best friend and I made a few secrets and took them to music and book stores, hiding them in the shelves near our favorite books and cds. It's a very liberating thing, putting some personal part of your life on paper and out into the world for someone else to find. It can even be therapeutic, if done for the right reasons.

For example, if you submit something to PostSecret just to see your creation online, you'd be better off getting a blog. At this point, Frank Warren probably gets more mail than he can read in a week so the likelihood of your secret showing up online isn't very high. But internet celebrity is not the point of this project. The purpose is to free yourself from whatever might be holding you back, and if that's all you need, leaving a secret for someone else to find is just as effective as mailing one in.

catching up

Once again, it's been far too long since I've written something new. I know why I go so long in between but I also know that if I'm ever going to get better at writing, I have to keep doing it. I just need to write, all the time, about anything at all. I've had a few ideas lately just to get myself started. I should have plenty to write about, since it's been at least a few months since my last little life update, but writing about things I've done always turns out too much like a list and I don't like that.

Just in case anyone is really interested, I'm about to finish up my second year of school. I have three class days left and two days of finals and then it's summer. I've had a ton of dental appointments lately, which has been awful, but I'm almost all done with those. I do have to have my wisdom teeth looked at soon though. I went to Magic Mountain with my brother last week and lost my cell phone, so now I'm using my mom's old phone and you wouldn't believe how inconvenient that is. That's one of things I might like to write about actually - cell phone/technology dependency.

I was talking to a friend the other week and he suggested writing about things that I could research. That's probably a better idea than constantly writing about my own thoughts and feelings, at least for journalism practice, which is exactly what I need. I really need to talk to someone about writing for the paper at my school, but I'm nervous about it too. It's been two years since I wrote anything like that. Eek.

As for now, I'm too frustrated and distracted to get into that right away. I'm waiting on an email about an interview assignment for one of my communications classes. I emailed someone I know who runs a music review website a few days ago. I sent him a handful of questions that would literally take a few minutes to answer, but he hasn't responded yet. He told me Monday that he'd get to it that night and apologized for the delay, but it's Wednesday evening now and still no email. You can imagine my annoyance. This assignment is due tomorrow and he expressed interest in being my subject, but now I have to worry about getting it done because he hasn't gotten around to answering a few simple questions. Sigh.

Other than that, I believe I have one big group project (a presentation and a group paper) and my finals to get through. My best friend is home for the summer and I've already seen her once. My cousin is having a baby shower next weekend that I'll be attending with my mom. Hopefully I'll be finding a job this summer, and if not, I'll be volunteering.

See what I meant about the list thing? Life updates are silly.

i'm not afraid to watch you change me

I had an idea a few weeks back to write a blog about resolutions and change, and I even started it, but never finished. Go figure.

Mindy White, of the band Lydia, posted something on Tumblr a while back that gave me the idea. She posted a quote from Martin Luther King, which read, “Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” After the quote she added, "2010. time for turning over a new leaf. actually, more like turning over an entire new tree. it's a year of changes."

For the past few years, since I've really been mature enough to care about bettering myself, the only resolutions I've made have always been about being more outgoing and making more friends. The one thing I'd love to change most about myself is how shy I am. I'm fine with talking to people as long as they initiate conversations, but it's incredibly difficult for me to approach anyone on my own. Whether they're just potential friends or people I'm attracted to, it terrifies me to make the first move for some reason. Or it has until now.

This past New Year's Eve was the first in a while that I gave no thought whatsoever to making a resolution. Personally, I don't think NYE is the only time you should worry about changing for the better, and shouldn't be an excuse to start changing, but that's beside the point. Within the past few months, I've also finally started to reach my breaking point in the sense that I'm tired of being lonely all the time and never making new friends. I've finally started hanging out with some people that live near me, and I've started being a little more outgoing and straightforward with the people I want to be around. I've probably made more friends at school this quarter than I have in my entire time at Cal Poly. Whether they last after my current classes end or not, I like to think that's a pretty damn good start.

In a sense, I guess I'm just proud of myself, but I think my favorite part about all of this is that when I finally stopped "planning" to change, I finally started changing. It's not always about planning everything out to the last detail. Sometimes you just have to go after what you want, even if you're not certain you'll get it. You might surprise yourself.

I woke up really early this morning to a horrible dream. I think it was around four or four thirty, about two hours before I normally wake up on school days right now, and I've been trying not to think about said dream so the details are a bit fuzzy now, seven hours later. It was essentially about my family finally falling apart, but all the details and causes were left unknown to me. In the dream, it seemed so sudden. It was like out of nowhere, my mom was packing up to leave and nobody would tell me why. I felt like a child having something torn away from me with no explanation and it terrified me so much. I was surprised I didn't wake up crying, to be honest. In a way, it was like the worst possible dream I could have.

I often feel that if the morning starts off badly, the rest of the day can't get any better. Today was strange though, because for everything that went wrong, I kept noticing things that were good. I woke up with a horrible dream, but the drive to school was gorgeous because of the weather clearing and the snow on the mountains and things of that nature. I had gas issues on my way out, but I kept hearing songs I loved on the radio in the morning, which rarely happens. It was like something or someone was trying to prove some perfect balance to me.

I don't really consider myself a religious person, but days like today make me wonder. Though, I must admit, I'm still in a pretty poor mood and I don't want to be here at all. Hopefully more random good things will happen before my day is over.