thankful

You fit into me
like a hook into an eye

a fish hook
an open eye 

Margaret Atwood-You Fit Into Me

with the holidays fast approaching, i sat and began to think of everything i am thankful for. the air i breathe, the house i live in, the shoes on my feet, the clothes on my back and the obstacles i have had to over come. i am alive because of these problems.

it has been a year since T broke up with me and last night was the culmination of our problems. i could no longer remain silent and T could no longer be sweet. "i have never loved you the way you need to be loved," his heart told me. i laid in the dark, holding my breath, wishing for he would change his mind. the days go by and i lie awake at night yearning for his touch, craving his lips upon my lips but to no avail. he does not love me and i can do nothing more. i sat on the bed, hands shaking, tears streaming down my cheeks, expecting my heart to break into pieces once again. instead, something unexpected occured: my heart remained whole and my mind found peace.

i awoke the next morning and i did not feel need to talk to T. i went about my day without so much as a single glance at my phone. to my amazement, i encountered a sense of peace and closure. his words are no longer burned into my memory and his arms are no longer my safety haven. as i looked in the mirror, i did not see the sad girl who waited patiently for her prince to return home. when i looked into the mirror, i saw the girl i thought had been lost forever. when i looked into that mirror, i saw the cold, closed and cynical girl from years ago...i saw myself again.

as i sit here thinking of all the things i am thankful for, i must say that i am most thankful for T. he showed me a world filled with beauty and proved that i too could bring my walls down. however, i am also thankful that he left me open and exposed, only then had i been able to experience heartache and passion.

i loved you then, i love you now, and i will always love you. but the girl you met 11 years ago will never return. 

it feels good to be back. 

night owl.

"And I can sit and talk
'Cause I was just like you
So arrogant and brave
Impetuous and rude

Trust me as a friend
And I'll do all that I can do
And I'd do anything for you
Because I want to see you through
It just takes time
Hard work and your time
You can change your life"

-Balance, The Future Islands

it's october and rain has fallen in the inland empire. i am offically 20 years old and it has been a somewhat crazy three months. it's weird to think that i am no longer a teenager. i figured my life would be different, that turning 20 would be the milestone i needed to change my future. alas, it wasn't so. three months changes thing...but sometimes for the worse. 

I moved to riverside in order to be closer to school and personally i really like it here. i am far away from my family but close enough to go home if i need to. sometimes, i do like going home. seeing my mother make dinner, hearing her stories about her life and sitting on my comfy red couch are all a beautiful nostalgia that my heart needs. other times i cannot stand the way my mother and my sisters argue, the constant bickering...gives me a migraine.

T and I are slowly drifting away. not in the sense that you are probably thinking but in an emotionally manner. i no longer disclose intimate things to him and thus i have become a withdrawn person. i am no longer that fun loving girl who didn't have a care in the world. these days i spend most of my time walking aimlessly through campus or on the streets trying to understand what the hell went wrong. i find it strange that no one really knows me. i used to think that when i talked to friends, it meant that we were getting to know one another. that our deepest fears and greatest concerns were being heard with attentive ears. yet, when i really think about it, no one knows me. days turn into wekks and all i have left to say is that i am better off dead. i envision my death while sitting outside watching the world go by and all i feel is relief. i can at last exhale and feel as if everything will be ok. some may call it depression, i call it everyday life. 

though i smile and laugh and enjoy my time, inside i feel nothing. i am slowly growing colder and colder towards everyone. i no longer care whether or not my friends want to keep contact with me nor do i care that T and i are in the exact same rut anymore. my feelings for him are there but i no longer care to be his girlfriend. all i want to do is sleep. 

will you sing me to sleep? but don't wake me in the morning. everyone can change thier life. it takes time and some serious therapy. 

revised.

“The trouble with friends was that you couldn’t get rid of them. There was no way to take back a friendship in the wake of betrayal or disappointment. The friendship, and everything that went with it, stayed. It just became unreliable, like an abandoned house; you still knew where all the rooms were, and which stairs creaked underfoot, but you had to check every floorboard for rot before trusting your weight to it.”

-Chris Moriarty

talk about a 180 degree turn. 
it's july and i find myself living in socal once again.
but things couldn't be any more different.
my relationships with everyone i once knew have changed and the trouble with coming home is that the place remains the same...it's me who isn't the same.


J and i have hit rock bottom. after discovering that the love her life is a piece of shit, i was place between a rock and a hard place. i thought she would want to hear my opinion as a friend but i was completely mistaken. it was opinion what she least wanted to hear and thus i caused the demise of our friendship. but the thing with friends is that you can't just cut them out. we stay in each other lives but become outsiders all at the same time. 


R and i had a reunion after months of not seeing each other and it was as if nothing had happened. i did nothing to demonstrate that i had any problems but i that only made things worse for me. acting as if nothing was wrong was avoiding my problem and he seemed to be perfectly fine with that...i am not. i am not ok with pretending that everything is ok. i am done running away from my issues, i am done sedating my mind from over thinking shit, i want to feel something again. even if that means feeling emptiness and alone. 


T and i are stuck in the same old rut and what's news there right? we act like we are still a couple but things are different. i cannot keep acting like i'm alright with it but i cannot bring myself to letting go...for good. i want him in my life but maybe things are better left broken. i sit outside my front porch wondering if life will get any easier and as i look out onto the empty street i realize that things will never get easier. when did my life get so complicated? when did i get so complicated? when did i stop feeling?


i am turning 20 this year. two years ago i thought i had everything figured out and here i am, lost and out of control. i have no say when it comes to the boy i love, i have damaged my relationship with my best friend and the gay boy whom i thought would love me forever is but a stranger to me now. drugs, alcohol and parties don't change anything. i wake up the next still empty and i want none of this anymore.


could it be that i have found rock bottom? could it be that i just want a new beginning? or am i just lying to myself? 


whatever the case may be, all i want is to feel loved unconditionally for who i am. over dramatic, sarcastic, desperate, compulsive, spontaneous, jealous, passionate, depressed, and loving. i want someone to change me...i want someone to change for me...i want someone to change my world...i want to be able to change my own.


i want to feel something, any fucking thing at all.

LA woman.

"what matters most is how well you walk through the fire."

-Charles Bukowsi


perhaps it's fate, perhaps it's a series of unrelated events all occurring at the exact same moment, but whatever it is, it lead me right back home. i wish i were describing how my life at ASU couldn't be any better, i wish i could say that my feelings for T have disappeared into nothingness, i wish i could stop time. however, this isn't fiction and as we all know too well is that life doesn't give us those happy endings. 


the beginning of the end.
imagine waking up the day before you are supposed to return back to college. imagine having your bags packed and your good byes said. imagine asking your mother what time your flight leaves in the morning. now, pay close attention, imagine your mother telling you that there is no ticket back to school...imagine blinking and realizing that it's not a dream. welcome to my life. 2012 started off on quite a bang (if i do say so myself). my mother just so happened to have lots of bills this semester and my school didn't make the cut on the priority list. but wait, there's more! she also rented out my room at home meaning that not only could i not return to school but i also could not return home. what do you do when your entire world comes crumbling down? ah, well you crumble down with grace. i decided to call ASU, move my stuff out, and find a place to live. i said good bye to my mother and didn't look back. now, i was never rude and i would be lying if i said i didn't love her even after everything. i love my mother, i do, but sometimes you come to the realization that loving someone is not enough. love can only go so far and then it's up to the person to keep the love alive. love can not survive for long when it's one-sided. sometimes in life, you have to let go of the people you love. i give her thanks for everything she has done (good and bad) because without those experiences i would not be the person i am today. Thank you Maria, may you enjoy the rest of your life and i'll be sure to send the occasional post card.


a new beginning. 
i decided that a community college would be my best bet and hopefully my ticket into a UC. it's a long shot but when you have nothing left to lose, opportunities seem abundant. i moved to riverside and opted to find my own apartment. i called relatives and have found much kindness in the most unexpected places. i also found myself in a very odd situation with T. to put it bluntly, we had sex. "what is wrong with you?" are statements that seem appropriate but i assure you no need for stating the obvious. what is wrong with me you ask? i'm hoplessly, stupidly head over heel for this boy. now, that's not to say i'm a dumb girl. on the contrary, the time spent with him made me realize something: i deserve better. convenience should never be an option to start a relationship on. I deserve someone willing to stand by my side regardless of proximity. i deserve someone who doesn't care what i have or haven't done, someone with a thirst of knowledge that exceeds my own, someone with a charm that makes the girls swoon yet has no need to keep his options open. i need a man not a boy and oddly enough for the first time in my life, i am willingly to wait for him. 


so where do you go when you hit rock bottom?
when you hit the bottom, there is only one place left to go: up. my life can be sized up to ten boxes and nothing else. i am in a constant state of numbness but i don't overlook the notion that perhaps, one day, things will be ok. the future used to scare me, growing up used to shut me up, death used to be a taboo subject. now, all i want to do is disappear for a while and wake up in a different city, a different country, a different person. who knows, maybe one day i'll catch a break and then again maybe i need the tough road to keep me on my toes. 


chiao bella arizona, hello brilliant los angeles.