something old, something new

I've had a couple friends who did this and I really enjoyed learning things about them I don't think I otherwise ever would. So here goes, 25 random things about me.

1. Every year on my birthday I dedicate a portion of time to spend thinking about my birth mom. I think she does this for me too. At least, I pretend she does.
2. I have an insanely good memory. People think it's actually stalker-ish how much I remember about the past. It’s more of a curse than a blessing.
3. When I was 8 years old I watched the movie Big. I thought it was so cool that Tom Hanks got to play with toys at work. I decided then and there that when I grew up I was going to be a child psychologist, so that I could play with toys at work.
4. I was very quiet in grade school. I went on a cruise the summer after my freshman year. I was forced out of my shell on that trip because I knew no one. I ended up meeting some amazing people and from then on have been social, sarcastic, and awkward. It is so much better that way.
5. Almost every time I go out, a stranger tells me I need to smile. I feel like I'm smiling, but I guess I never am. It really bothers me.
6. I really don't know why my Will Smith obsession ever started. I always told people that I would meet him and no one ever believed me. Meeting him gave me the hope I needed to realize I can do anything I set my mind to.
7. A lot of people tell me that when they first saw me, they thought I was a complete bitch. They had no reason to, but I gave out the vibe I guess. This saddens me because it makes me think I've missed out on a lot of good people in my life over something I have no control over.
8. People think I am nuts for wanting to get my PhD, especially going straight through. I think people are nuts for wanting to work a 9-5 job.
9. I could never have imagined how close I would grow with the family I babysit for right now. I feel like they are my own family. I met them via Craigslist.
10. When my parent's told me my mom was pregnant, I didn't talk to any member of my family for a week. I hate change that much. Frankie is the best thing in my life and I couldn't imagine her not being here.
11. I have a lot of different groups of friends. They each provide a very necessary aspect in my life. I also hate letting people go.
12. I started taking a hip hop class at the gym a couple of weeks ago. Even though I look ridiculous doing it, it makes me feel really good about myself.
13. Out of left field I’ve developed really bad anxiety. I wouldn’t wish it upon my worst enemy. This mixed with over-analyzing sucks real bad somedays.
14. When I was little I would watch Wheel of Fortune with my grandpa. He told me he wanted me to go on the show cuz he thought I would win. I watch it every night I can and am pretty darn good.
15. I am obsessed with Mexican food, especially taco bell, even though people tell me it isn’t really Mexican. My parents joke that they got me from Mexico because it’s literally all I ever want to eat.
16. There is nothing better than a long drive on a spring day. Especially paired with hardcore emo music and/or 80s music.
17. I developed an obsession for heels over Christmas break. I have a horrible shoe collection and am slowly trying to change that.
18. When I was in 4th grade I saw a tornado. We were at Banner Mattress and Furniture, buy my sister a new bed. I hit under a desk and watched it go down the road. Whenever there is a tornado warning I freak.
19. The three best vacations I have ever had were: summer before freshman year at UD with all my best high school friends, Daytona junior year, and Amsterdam last Spring. I am betting that Italy this summer will join that list.
20. I started pre-school when I was 2. I could do multiplication tables at age 3. I read 578 books in 1st grade for Book-It. I wish I had that much motivation to do anything at this point in my life.
21. My relationships with my two best friends had unusual starts. Mary stole my best friend in 3rd grade during a Girl Scout event and I went home and cried in the bath tub. When she left in 5th grade we became best friends. I invited Amanda to my freshman year birthday because a friend liked her brother and I didn’t know who she was.
22.I did gymnastic for 12 years. The only part of it I enjoyed was tumbling. I literally would close my eyes, move my body, and somehow land. It was awesome.
23. I want to write a memoir of my life and have it published when I die. I don’t want people to discuss it while I’m alive.
24. I absolutely love that one day I will get to tell my grandchildren I was a sex ed teacher.
25. I want 5 kids. I’m pre-disposed to have twins and I want to adopt an Asian baby. I might get more than 5!

confined moments of calm in my head

I'm feeling an overwhelming sense of calm right now. Overwhelming describing calm, kinda makes me laugh. These moments are few and far between these days, so I have to appreciate them as they come. The calm before the storm is coming and I'm trying my hardest to not think about all that is going to happen in the next coming months. This break is the first time in a long while that my day hasn't been written in lists and measured by how many of those things were crossed off in accomplishment.

I was thinking about school today and how still, at the age of 23, we go around the room and introduce ourselves on the first day of a new class. This time I get to say, "I'm in the 2 year program, and I am graduating in May." I guess it's slowly happening, ending this stage in my life and preparing for the next. It's weird, because I remember a year and a half ago, laying in this same bed wanting to move to Cleveland so bad and start something new. I've done a lot of shaping myself over this time. I think the biggest change is my independence. Senior year at UD my favorite professor had us do this exercise about something we wanted to accomplish when we graduated and mine was become independent. It's scary how quickly that become a reality.

Normally I hate change and the uneasy feeling I get not knowing what is going to happen next, but right now this stage of limbo is comforting. For once in my life I don't have a plan, okay I have like 17 plan depending, but it's out of my control. It's liberating. And it allows me to scare myself in a sickening good way. 

I wonder if fate exists. Sometimes I think that life is playing these funny tricks on me but in the end it's so going to be worth it. Like one day you just wake up and get it. At times I want that understanding, that carefully tweaked plan that makes complete sense to me. But then there's those days where you get up with no agenda and end up having some of the best moments of your life. 

I think I'm starting to discover myself.

dip, divulge

I sit here, in my parents' house, on a Friday night. It's my parents house, not my own, because while some of my belongings still exist between these walls, I know longer feel as though it is my place anymore. It's amazing how fast time, and life, can change you.

I've been back less than two days and I'm already reaping in the benefits of not being a responsible adult. When I think about my friends who are married right now it really scares me. Plus, who doesn't want to be spoiled by their parents for a couple of weeks during the holiday season? I'd love to find a guy who could provide me with the lifestyle I'm living under this roof. 

It's just a necessary break. From school, from interning, from work, from my mind. I get an entire month, well 3 more weeks, to wake and up do whatever I want. While most of that freedom will be spent becoming friends-with-benefits with my bed and convincing myself that playing guitar hero constitutes as exercise, I still have the ability to choose how I will spend the next glorious weeks. 

I went to the library today and wandered in and out of the aisles of books, trying to decide what my interests were in.  It's been a long while since I've been able to decide what I am interested in and there was an overwhelming sense of calm when I realized how many people probably felt the same jumble and jargon in their heads and put those thoughts in words for others to take a glimpse of. I've settled on books of "truth." The personal genre I've made up for my interests at the moment. Books about real-stories. College memoirs, psychological disorders, people reflecting back on complicated times in their lives and how they moved on from them to live a normal life. Seems pretty fitting, right?

You know when you see a pool and you want to dive right into it? Some people take that plunge right into the water, not knowing what they are going to feel when they hit the surface. I'm not one of those people. I put my big toe in, follow by the foot, leg, and if you're lucky I get paranoid that people think I'm overanalyzing the ratio of pool temperature to air temperature and just go for it. Well I'm going to stay consistent and bring that metaphor into my life for the next couple of weeks. Divulge into some new things, at a steady pace, and see if one pulls me in enough to stay for a while. If what I'm saying doesn't make sense to you right now, I've succeeded. 

I'll be posting a lot this break. Writing is that one thing that radiates the life back into me. And it's something I do just for myself. Until then, I leave you with this quote. I'm hoping it will bring some psychological and philosophical insight to my life in the near future.

"The idea of traumatic loss and how do people manage life after loss, and what is the difference between someone who falls into depression and someone who finds joy and an optimistic space. The answer I discovered is purpose." - Will Smith, on his character in Seven Pounds

nostalgia

My line of work relies heavily on good communication and thinking.  I think way too much and I often don't communicate how I feel.

Have you ever had something way so heavily on you that it starts to consume you? I've allowed my mind to get out of control and it's slowly breaking me down.

I'm learning to never assume. 

The Divide

My life has been so overwhelmingly busy that I haven't really had time to sit down and put my thoughts together.  While I'm constantly conjuring up different thoughts and feelings in my head, I'm not able to verbalizing them in a cathartic way and it's starting to add more stress on my life. The clocks ticking and I have deadlines, both physical and theoretical, and I just need to pause and allow myself some room to breathe so I don't overlook something and allow myself to get caught up in a life I know longer own.

Balancing an internship (which I adore and slightly obsess over) where I am pretty much a staff member, a Master's education with a full time school load, and PhD applications is finally getting to me.  My life is put in these little boxes where I have to schedule what I need to do in order to make sure it gets done.  Basically if you're not in my planner, there's a good chance I've lost all communication with you.  It's this unbalanced feeling of maintaining relationships with the people closest to me (or at least were in the past, but now we are growing up and changing, and those ties are becoming broken) and setting myself up for a future that is truly going to make me feel accomplished and passion-driven.  

I've become a most established social worker in the fact that I am comfortable with what I am doing now and I'm really coming to understand the theories and how to apply them to my work.  This would be great, except now it's conflicting with my relationships.  Whereas before I would constantly listen to my friends and help them with various things going on, now my mind goes to "well they are experiencing this as a result of this so they should do this." I just feel like I can't even help a friend anymore, whatever I want to say almost sounds condescending. 

In my human sexuality class we learned about how when people are in relationships (partnerships, but I apply this to friendships as well) they know what the other person likes.  If they are not giving this to the person, they figure they are going somewhere else to get it, because in their relationship it has always been a huge factor.  For instance, if you are not having sex, but you know your partner loves sex, you assume that they are cheating on you. Well I've kind of applied that theory to my own life, in the fact that I'm loosening ties with a lot of friends.  Whereas before I had so much time to catch up when them now I'm just.  However, instead of being worried that they are become friends with someone else (which I am not saying is a bad thing, I want everyone to be friends with everyone) I get these huge anxiety attacks where I feel like my friends are mad at me because they don't want to be a part of my life anymore. When in reality this sounds ridiculous, for some reason my mind is always thinking things like this. Just another thing I worry about that has no basis or reasoning behind it.

I'm also coming to a turning point where I'm trying to fight between two different sides that I have.  One is telling me to tell the world to fuck off, if people don't like me then it is there problem.  The other yearns for acceptance from others, because really no one wants to be rejected.  I want to step out of my comfort zone and take some leaps to see where I will go, but then I am afraid of failing and loosing who I was altogether.  And as always I love my freedom that I have become accustomed too, but I am in need of a partner who I can come to at the end of the day and make me realize that this is just life, and it will all be okay.  I wish it were easier to find someone who makes you happy, enjoys your quirks, accepts you for who you are, is able to communicate, and it able to show you compassion and care.  I guess that is kind of a lot to ask for though, huh?

If anything at all I have to allow myself to take more time to get these thoughts out.  Maybe someone will read them someday and be able to relate. I guess that's what it all really comes down to. 

what am i doing?

I feel like my life is scattered at the moment, as in things are all over the place and I don't really know what I am doing. I keep telling myself the next 11 months don't really matter because I'm just truckin' it along, finishing my master's, and getting ready for the next step. Somehow things will fall into place, they always do. It's actually pretty amusing that when I look back on everything all the worrying I did was unnecessary.  Next year at this time I will either be preparing for my doctorate or in the real world with a job. I really enjoy not knowing where I am going to be or what I am going to be doing, I just hope it's a big change. I'm ready for something new.

I've had too much time to think recently, which has continued the cycle of me overanalyzing myself.  Since I've moved to Cleveland I've changed. I'm not sure if it's the independence or the social work, but something has caused me to grow up and really get to know myself.  I've realized that I've become a pretty nice person, which would be a good thing, if it didn't mean I let people walk all over me.  I think I'm scared of conflict, scared of rejection from people, so I hold back a lot of what I am thinking and feeling.  I'm allowing people to say things to me and I just brush it off, which I find a lot easier than starting a pointless argument.  

I read  "A New Earth" as suggested and I thought 75% of it was bs. It got to the point where I was just reading it to get through it, but once in a while I would stumble across something that I really did enjoy.  If I got anything from reading it it was that you have to live in the moment and understand that only you can control your actions.  Everyone around you is doing something different and you're not always going to like it, but you have the choice to decide how to handle that.  I could spend my time being mad, resenting people for things, and overanalyzing situations, or I could step back, decide what options I have, and choose what is best for me. 

I've also realized that I have put a huge wall around myself and I'm not allowing anyone in.  There are very few people that I open up to and even my closest friends I hold a lot of things back from. I guess it's because I don't want to get criticized for my choices and I don't want to be lectured. I'm old enough to make my own decisions and live with those consequences. 

Another thing I realized is that I complain about not being able to meet a guy in Cleveland, however whenever I'm visiting friends for a weekend I meet someone I could really like. Or I find a guy in Cleveland who just so happens to live in a city hundreds of miles away.  I'm pretty sure I am doing this because I don't want to meet anyone that I can like. First, I'm moving in less than a year, so I don't want to start a relationship and then pack up and leave right when things get serious.  Also, I don't want to subject myself to the chance of getting hurt. Finally when the wounds are almost mended, I don't want to open them back up.

I'm pretty sure some of the choices I am making right now I am going to kick myself for later, but I'm just going with it. Not questioning it, not overanalyzing it, not wondering why it is happening and if there are deeper meanings underneath. I'm just hoping it can stay this way and not get complicated. 

You can't get hurt if you don't put feelings into it, right?

sunday nights alone

Have you ever had a feeling that you can't put into words? It fills your head and your heart it consumes you, yet you don't know what to do with it.

The way things work out in my life are somewhat humorous. Just when I think I have things together something I would never expect happens. And here I am, this thought on my mind, no idea what to do with it. Do I take the risk and open myself up to figure out what exactly it is that I am feeling? Or is this beating a dead horse? I mean, I don't know how many times I can set myself up to get hurt and say it will be different when it never is, but I just have this feeling. Like it's the right thing to do. In all the fucked-up-ness this is right, whatever it is. And no one else gets it. But we do. 

I guess just writing that made me feel a little bit better. I need to write more, really write. And I need to find some things to be passionate about. Somehow searching for doctoral programs and studying for the GRE are not my forte. But I've developed a new love of the gym to get negative energy out. I'm just ready for August and being able to do something I really care about.  Summer and all this free time just give me way too much time to think.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with my life at all, yet I always find something to worry about. It's like I can't allow myself to be truly happy and I don't know why.