When the rain falls

And the night falls down
Yea, you've got me here
In this humdrum town

At almost twenty-nine, I finally grew out of casual sex, learned how to light a lighter, and wear eyeliner. I learned that bro-code pretty much doesn't exist, that it's kind of necessary to note you're in a relationship on Facebook, that having trouble saying no only makes situations harder, and that online dating is a waste of time. I learned to appreciate the humor in awkward moments when guy friends think you're down for hooking-up, and, in getting fired from your job boxing pizzas. It was the year when I started gauging everything against forever. It was the year when I let you go. I had waited my entire life for someone to love me in that way, to that degree, and when you came around, I learned the hardest lesson, sometimes love just isn't enough. I faced it with a certain disbelief. Sometimes true stories are the hardest to comprehend because they can shake the reality you always felt you knew.

At almost twenty-nine, I stopped feeling like a failure. That's how it had felt, gauging accomplishments against time, against that of others, against these ideas I had had on what life was supposed to be like at certain intervals.

At almost twenty-nine, you came around again, in a way I hadn't seen since we were far younger. And I played with the idea of you, in that way. Maybe a decade was all we needed. But in reality, the thought of being with you, makes me feel like that 16 year old girl who first fell for you, and I'm not her anymore.

And for the first time in maybe ever, I don't mind getting older.

The former years. 

the loss

the loss of a friend was always the hardest part. maybe that's why i could never commit to anyone. i hated losing people so much. i could count the number of friends lost to anger or hurt on one hand. that was it. i never lost people. to commit to someone meant it might end, which meant, there might be a loss at the end of that because what else could there be? maybe one day we'll be okay. maybe one day we'll be friends again.

but we all know. how that story goes. we'll move on. we'll change. we'll grow. and we'll soon, to each other, merely become people we used to know. because other things will have happened in the meanwhile, things neither will have been a part of. and we won't be the same people anymore. and even after the hurt and anger has relented. after the tears have ceased. after the missing goes away. after things no longer really remind you of them. you'll lose that need. that need to have them in your life, and you will relent. you'll accept. that sometimes, some people are only meant to be in your lives for certain periods. and we move on.

only rarely, does the friendship come around again. only rarely.

Bon Iver

"Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option."- Mark Twain

I get crazy, you know? That's how I've always been able to tell that I like a guy, that I'm in trouble. I start to feel the insecurity, the jealousy, the crazy brewing just beneath the surface. The crazy that no one likes, the crazy that I hate myself for falling into. And I hate myself that way so much that if it doesn't freak them out, if it doesn't chase them away, well, I figure out how to leave myself. I figure a way out somehow because I hate the crazy. But I just don't know how to make myself not be that way. I know how to catch a guy. It's easy. I'm completely myself, and I'm confident and I say what I think and I don't give a crap if they care or not, but the second I start to realize I have something to lose, I just end up losing myself.

morning affairs, from bed

 At twenty-six, I'm finding out, people will often tell you, sometimes settling is the only option, and sometimes, there's nothing you can do to right a wrong, and sometimes, people won't forgive you, and sometimes, you will forget that you wanted more out of this life, out of the people you adore, and you'll settle for merely what everyone's told you is possible, and not what you know is possible.


 the former years

"The future is only an indifferent void no one cares about, but the past is filled with life, and its countenance is irritating, repellent, wounding, to the point that we want to destroy or repaint it. we want to be masters of the future only for the power to change the past." -Milan Kundera

At twenty-one, I learned the reality of the everlong cliche of broken hearts, emotions heightened to anger, hate, bitterness and regret without sacrifice, without discretion: it was what it was.

At twenty-two, I learned the price of self-worth and perhaps the most difficult things in life are the truths for which we cannot control: time, cancer, the choices of others

At twenty-three, I learned the reality and repercussions of the choices we choose to make, the price of momentary desires

At twenty-four, I learned some things are never meant to be reconciled: perhaps it's not whether someone else will forgive you for your actions, but rather if you can forgive yourself.


At twenty-five, I learned there's no shortage of dreamers, but those who choose to pursue those dreams are few. And those who choose to muddle on in pursuit, even after time and trials fail, are even further between.

My existence these days can only be summed up as surreal. Loss of sanity, happiness as momentary leaps dotting the horizon.

I am from planet earth, of this I'm sure. Of only this I'm sure.

What's with the tattoo?

On my wrist, is a tattoo of an envelope with a heart on the flap. Strange, I know. Most people don't get it. Most people don't get me.

People always ask. We'll be in the middle of a bar, or a party, or eating in a restaurant, and they'll ask. And I'll shrug, and say I don't want to explain.

Anyway, I had viet coffee again. I drank it at 1 p.m., which I thought was a safe hour, but here I am, awake at 3:22 a.m. So here's what it means.

It's for my inability to be happy in any one place for too long. It's for this need I always seem to have with running away, for the sake of growing up, for the sake of sanity. It's letters home, for everyone I always find myself leaving behind, for everyone I've ever loved that I can't be near. I'm consistently leaving people behind. It's letters to everyone that can't be here, in this moment. It's for everything I could never say to my mother, for our language barrier, for our differences, our inability to understand the worlds in which we grew up in. It's for everything I could never express to my dad. It's for everything I will never say to the father, who was once married to my mother, who loved me as he knew, who I hope is happy somewhere. And it's for everything I could never say, written in a letter, to you. I was never good with words in the verbal medium.

This is why I don't explain these things when people ask. It's rather a long story.

another birthday

Four years ago, my mother was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. She later had a mastectomy. I remember speaking with the doctor over the phone, 120 miles away from home, on this clear early autumn day, between classes. He said it was a 50/50 chance. He didn't sound hopeful. And that was that. I remember being in the waiting room. I always hated hospitals, something about the smell, the death, the sick people. I remember the chemo treatments. That autumn, I took 18 credits, an internship 50 miles away from campus and at one point, between dealing with all of that and heart break, I couldn't eat for two weeks. The thought of food physically made me nauseous. I ended that semester with the highest GPA of my college career.

Two years ago, I packed my life into a suitcase and caught a flight to Florence, Italy. I moved in with 15 complete strangers, and it was the best thing I ever did. There were weeks where there was nothing more that I wanted, than living in the moments I was living in. You know you have it good when you don't want time to pass by any faster than they do. There was no, muddling through the week simply to get to the weekend–where in the ordinary life, living begins. Every day, I couldn't believe that was my life.

I've had my world, everything I've ever believed in, almost crumble. Where nothing mattered but praying. And I've had days, months where I've done more living than most can say in a life time.

So now, whatever the next stage of this life brings me, I know I'll be ready, I'll be okay, and things might even end up amazing.

all's quiet on the western front.

You used to joke me, calling me Kimberly cause you knew I didn't like it. After all this time, I still have this soft spot for you, and even though we don't talk enough to be friends really, I'm glad you still come around, every so often.

on chances

After all this time, nothing's the same anymore.

Most days, really, most days, you don't cross my mind.

But sometimes, somedays, I wish I still knew you.


I guess this would apply all across the board.  All those I once had friendships with, and those events that transpired over tabletop conversations, the manner of ease in banter levied with subtext, but momentary leaps, without heart, don't really stand a chance against daylight, do they?

on my religion

via @CodyBrown Just read David Foster Wallace's Comencement Speech. Holy. Shit. http://bit.ly/9CDgKv Thanks for the link @joecoscarelli @timsteno

"Of course the main requirement of speeches like this is that I'm supposed to talk about your liberal arts education's meaning, to try to explain why the degree you are about to receive has actual human value instead of just a material payoff. So let's talk about the single most pervasive cliché in the commencement speech genre, which is that a liberal arts education is not so much about filling you up with knowledge as it is about quote teaching you how to think....the really significant education in thinking that we're supposed to get in a place like this isn't really about the capacity to think, but rather about the choice of what to think about."

8-year-old: where do u always go in the summer? i ask your mom about you. she said paris....

It's funny how things sound coming from a kid.  She said it so wistfully. 

I went back to my old high school today.  Dropped by to pick up my cousin, he's a sophomore now.  And I took the wrong turn out through the neighborhood we shortcut through.  Has it really been that long?

In those days, we were just trying to get the fuck out of this town, and we succeeded, and now I'm back here, driving down the streets I've known for far too long.


But this time, this time I'm going to stick around for awhile. Make something of myself 'round here.

on world politics

your inability to understand frustrates me so. you know, i'm just trying to keep my sanity. but you say, school is a luxury. this is a luxury. i write. i write and i write for free because its what i do, and i love it. but it's hard. and you say, you don't understand. you ask, what about that other thing you get paid for. you don't understand these things that i've made matter.

but what can i really say. should i say you're right on all counts. should i let it go. afterall, you lived through a war. you survived a war. what do i know about that. what do i know about those days. you survived. education is a luxury. writing is a luxury. dreams are a luxury. and you survived, you're the embodiment of this dream, this american dream. but you don't understand. your mother died of an illness, she was cremated, after the war, your father, he took his own life, and your sister would do the same years later. and he left. and you survived.

so what can i really say.

I should blog for school, but honestly, I got nothin'.

This snowstorm has totally killed my 'lead a healthier lifestyle' kick. The only time I move is to go down to my kitchen, and that's only to get food.

(December snowstorm +) 2 feet + another impending 10-20 inches. I've never seen this much snow in my life.


There's not much in this life that we have total control over, or sometimes, any control for that matter. Can't control death or illness or whether some guy takes an interest in you or whether someone will take to the shit you write. So then you turn to the things you can control.


Sometimes you do things just because you can.


I wonder if that's a good enough reason.

in streaming

In the after years we ran away to nations and nation states, lectures on American imperialism and the affairs of Central and Eastern Europe, Turkey's fight and London's ambivalence, after hours we decompressed, fueled on euro birra coined from 24-hour vending machines on the stone steps of the old church, Irish pubs across the river filled with Americans we loathed, there in the wood-benched alcove, under 90's tunes of the American dot-com era, before the money woes, of another time, we cheered on Fiorentina v Milan, over-hyphenated societies and the inability to understand the plight of the ordinary, in the messiest of times our only anthem was living


no one ever knows what they're going to be when they grow up, even after they've grown up, it was never about the destination, the end result, it was always about the continuation, the continuum, they didn't all hear us, they didn't all understand but there was admiration, envy

plagued by unrest, begging change to the world in which we'd return

we came back to the world as we'd known it, over-worked Americana in over-populated suburbias.

Strangers

Sunday mornings, sweats in bed, stories missing. Bundled dreams, these lofty ideas, kept away. Will we ever make it out of this town.

Alicia Keys, Empire State of Mind solo.

What are we going to do with ourselves?

At twenty-five, I'm learning there's no shortage of dreamers, but those who choose to pursue those dreams are few. And those who choose to muddle on in pursuit, even after time and trials fail, are even further between.


The former years.

remember when we were such fools, and so convinced, and just too cool

I guess, sometimes there's nothing more to say. When things get too complicated, too convoluted, words only make things worse. Sometimes you just have to deal with it, move on. Sometimes you have to let go. Sometimes you have to. Because that small window for when they did care is gone. When he'd call you up, that's right call you up and ask what was wrong.

I start things sometimes for sport. It's all for sport, you know. Because, life gets mundane sometimes. And then, it goes too far, and then I have to back track, but by then, it's too late.



I'm still trying to get off the board, considering you got off a long time ago.



I'm tired of these games I keep getting wrapped into.

so many men.

And none to keep.

It was only an affair

"Are you sure?"
"Yes."

He'd asked her repeatedly.
She couldn't figure why he cared so much.

Now, in retrospect, she really didn't have anyone to blame but herself. Though, blame was perhaps the wrong word. The way things were ceased to exist after that first time. Because well, she should've known better.

But we never learn from our mistakes do we? Sometimes we keep making the same ones over and over, until it works out, until they're not mistakes anymore.

And she never wanted any more than what they had, or that's what she told herself anyway. She wasn't sure if she'd convinced herself of the fact, or in actuality it was just that, fact. And it was only the pure idea of more that bothered her.

She didn't want more, but she drew the line at others. He couldn't very well fuck her and others at the same time. That was where she had to draw the line. Of all the mistakes, she had to draw it there. That was where she could draw it. Because, at that point, she couldn't compromise.

But she wondered still, how could she ask that of him. So she didn't because it wasn't hers to entitle. So she left.

And at the end, she wondered if she left because she couldn't compromise or if she left because she didn't want to accidentally fall for it all.

And we all wonder. What's the big deal? It's not like it was love. After all, it was only an affair. It was only an affair.

There was never any weight, was there.

Their banter was never the same, and was it worth it? Probably not, but she'd probably make the same mistakes again.