a season of thanks

this year, i want to thank you for loving me at my very worst. thank you for all the home-cooked meals and fresh-baked goods. thank you for making the effort to keep in touch, even when we're miles apart. thank you for choosing to have me in your life, for the long nights, filling my life with laughter, for making my fights yours, being there for the tears, without judgment. i'm thankful that ya'll are in good health, and for allowing me to offer strength, when you've needed it most. thank you for always providing me with a travel buddy, when this city becomes too much. thank you for being my family, the siblings i never had, and for taking the time to read the words i'm always writing, my letters to you.

and i'm so thankful that for another year, i had you all in my life. and i pray, i will see another full year with all of you.

this year, i'm working on accepting those things for which i cannot change, working on accepting the choices of others, and learning that i can't fight to keep myself in your life, that i shouldn't have to fight for that. but know this, if you ever decide you need me, i guess i'll always be here.

don't be fooled

Miguel: you're psychologically insane.

Mike: kim i feel like in real life you are a much more upbeat person
Mike: and for some reason online you are as blue as they come

story goes she got me cookies on sunday...
ann: but they are hard now
me: well i like hard ones. are they stale. this makes me so sad. try it. is it stale? i can eat hard cookies. this sounds relaly pathetic.
ann: yea its hard as a rock
me: sigh
ann: Haha. ill bake some cookies for you tomorrow!
me: oh. to what do i owe this wonderful event.
ann: bc we are friends

"We have to make our own mistakes. We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today's possibility under tomorrow's rug until we can't anymore, until we finally understand for ourselves what Benjamin Franklin meant. That knowing is better than wondering, that waking is better than sleeping. And that even the biggest failure, even the worst most intractable mistake beats the hell out of never trying."

Running away to Brooklyn.

Young folks.

On rainy Sundays. These are my favorite in Florence. Sitting in the T.V. room watching dvds of Dawsons Creek, while the city pours. Mornings laying in bed under the wake of torrential storms.

We have a symposium tomorrow. I have to present a paper I wrote 2 months ago on a topic I barely remember. And it will be okay.

We have a paper due in less than 14 days. 3,000 words of child's play.

And it seems, the way we were, the way we were may have gone with the beginning of the end. The ease of unwitting banter.

In other news, over before this program was fit to end. Why? Perhaps because in the final moments, people find themselves in situations they wouldn't normally be in. Why? Because it is the end. Because it doesn't matter anymore. Because we won't have to live with it for long. Because the reminder won't be for long.

And I woke up this morning incredibly sad. Incredibly sad because you aren't the same. Not entirely the same. The difference may be subtle, but it is there. And it's sad because I just realized, this may be the only way I will know you, we will know each other from now on. And that makes my heart heavy.

I've always been a skeptic when it comes to the ordinary romance. Only a handful of my friends are in long-term relationships, and of those, I may only approve of one or two for marriage. Either way, hers was one that over the course of knowing, I thought perhaps I was too skeptic on the ability of perfection in things. Except, it seems, nothing is really ever as perfect as it may seem. And though I've always been aware of this fact, it's weird to see it, to be a witness to the imperfection. The imperfection in a perfection I almost believed in.


23 January 2009.

"i was thinking about life. can't figure out if i'm happy or not," he said.
"well if you have to think about it..."
"not sure," he replied. "hey, how about you, are you happy?"


and my first reaction to his hesitation was perhaps he wasn't. because wouldn't it be something you wouldn't need to think about? but i hesitated. and my reply? i guess i am happy.

it's weird. being back in italy, i'm not homesick like i was the first time. and in some ways it kinda felt like coming home. and i know, when this is over, this is one of those times in my life i'm going to look back on and miss terribly.

so maybe, maybe i won't ever attain everything i desire. well of course not, because my desires are endless and insatiable. but if i were to go now, today. i'd say, i got everything i ever wanted.

and that's enough.