“I find it hard to tell you, cause I find it hard to take”

“Well I heard there was a secret chord, that David played, and it pleased the Lord but you don't really care for music, do you? “

It started with a random song that came on my Pandora, I remember hearing some of the words, the melody stuck in my head but I couldn’t remember the name of the artist who sang it so I googled the title of the song, “Hallalujah”, and got a youtube video a fan-made video featuring Kate Voegele’s vocals. I’m not even remotely familiar with her, as I’ve actually never heard of her before. But her version of the song struck a cord with me. It’s her voice, it captivates me and I wonder if people ever become so infatuated with a song because the way a certain sound. I’m sure they do, but I like to think I’m unique in my obsession with vocals. It raises hairs on my arms and I can actually feel tears well up in my eyes. And I’m positive that this is how music should be felt, heard even.

First of all, the lyrics are beautiful. The strange part is that they’re spiritual and they hit me in a way I can’t even explain. It makes me feel more glass half full in regards to my life. However, I have difficulty pulling from this cynical outlook. I feel like I’m forever feeling the “the minor fall” of life in everything that I do. I’m still waiting for “the major lift” So I can have my Hallelujah moments I know it’s just the ebbs and flow of life, but I truly believe that some people are more lucky than others and I haven’t the luck of the Irish that I should have. But I digress. There is something about this line from the song, “And Love is not a victory march, it's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah “ Borderline obsessed with the notion. I just know that the voice combined with the lyrics sooth me, like a pacifier does to a fussy baby.

And then there’s the flip-side to the other song that’s also been on repeat, Mad World, a slightly darker take on life. Which interestingly enough the video I found also fan-made was set to scenes from Girl, Interrupted; which is oddly fitting. But anyway, I knew I had heard it before because I recalled the melody and lyrics slightly (Tears for Fears) but the artist singing it was new to me, Alex Parks. I love her voice. It’s another one of those voices that appeals to me and draws me into the song. But this song is about how we get so caught up in life and run these circles and it all seems so tiresome. I can my fears being ripped from me and put on show in this song.

“Hide my head I want to drown my sorrows, no tomorrow…”

I relate so much to the dark and lonely lyric “And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad, the dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had.” It’s such a cynical outlook, and it gives off this edge of loneliness in the singer’s voice. It reaches into the darkness of me and pulls these thoughts forward.

“I find it hard to tell you, cause I find it hard to take”

It’s hard to understand the darkness that comes into me when I have these fairy tales of life in my head, my humor is twisted and dark, bleak, but my heart is princesses, fairies, magical lands and happily ever after.

The very twist of both of these songs being on my replay list back to back suggest a certain bi-polar/teenage angst feeling inside of me. And then this tug for normalcy, which explains the tears that well inside me when I hear “Hallelujah” and the sense of comfort I feel when I hear “Mad World.”

Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” -Marianne Williamson

Helpless, Hopeless

I want badly to be a published author, but perhaps not bad enough because I can’t think of any story I want to write about more than what I know, and that’s me. I know my life, I know my story and it might sell. But it also might be just like everything else. And am I really pompous enough to think I could write to book standards? But also, I don’t think I’m completely ready to open myself up for everyone to take in.

In essence, I am a self published author by way of the internet, but I want to feel my book in a hardcover biding. I want people to read what I write and connect to me on that level, to understand, maybe even help. I haven’t the strength to do what I want.

Not yet, anyway.

It's no suprise to me I am my own worst enemy...

A girl I went to high school told me she always admired my confidence in high school. It got me thinking about what confidence really meant. In high school, I was never very confident; I was just involved in my own tormented world that it was hard for much to get through my hard shell and into the core of my being. And surely that’s not confidence.

Anyone can take a million pictures and find one that they look good in, after all, it truly is about angles. I'm queen of angles. My family makes fun of me for them, maybe not in effort to hurt me, but never the less, a certain photo style is now considered a "Jennie Photo" - And really? It was way of making myself feel beautiful, because no one else was going to. And surely that's not confidence? But even now, I don't feel so vain and even less beautiful.

Really, my weight has been heavily on my mind these past few weeks. I had friends in town and they wanted a tour of NYC and I felt like I was holding them back because I couldn’t walk as fast or as long. Never mind that the heat was a factor, walking caused my a lot of pain in my head. I thought my head was going to explode, I got lightheaded on several accounts but I pushed myself to move forward with breaks, but I still don’t feel as though I accomplished anything.

I make excuses that I’m more of a wanderer who likes to take things in in different spots, but its also because my body cannot handle the physical exertion. My body has hit a point where I’m no longer comfortable in my own skin and this scares me.

I don’t have a whole lot of will power, though I am stubborn. And I can’t wrap my brain around the idea that you have to not have certain foods. I happen to love food and it pisses me off that I can’t eat it. I understand that everything in moderation, and I really have been trying to watch that, make better choices on what I do eat, but sometimes you just want a huge slice of chocolate cake, with ice cream.
I have a lot swirling around in my brain lately, Its taking more for me to feel good about myself than it used to. It used to be easy for me to feel beautiful or pretty and now, I feel the darker shadow of me more than the beautiful me.

It’s hard to even say these things out loud, and honestly even harder to type it. Because the feeling being that, as a writer, there is more truth in what I write then what I say. When I write, I’m allowed to say anything, without the fear of crying, or getting angry, when I talk I fear crying and getting angry. I fear people seeing the emotion on my face or hearing it in my voice, even though arguably, you can feel emotions in words, if one is a good writer or even mediocre.


I have a lot of hang-ups about losing weight, a lot of stigmas that keep me rooted in my opinions. For one, I absolutely hate sweating. And for two, I never understand the euphoria feeling people get after they’ve been to a gym or worked out. I don’t get it. I get light headed and stomach achy. I’m also a sucker when it comes to pain, I can’t tolerate it very well, at all. If you exercise right there should be pain right? I can’t wrap my brain around that Idea either. And you know, perhaps these are all just road blocks I’m putting in my way, but I’d much rather hang out in a pool any day than sweat myself to death on a treadmill. But I don’t really have regular access to a pool nor the funds to have access to a pool... Sometimes your batting Zero (That reference was for you Emily)

I’m ready for a change in scenery and a change in me, hopefully within the next few months I can truly get over myself and get on to being a better me physically, mentally and also educationally. I’m so ready for chapter *insert whatever number this is.*

Maybe then I can find the right confidence, the true kind that I feel inside and out.

Maybe then I can be more than just a pretty face.

Everything I needed to know about Love, I learned from The Beatles

"You say you want a revolution Well, you know we all want to change the world" - Revolution (The Beatles)

In light of New York's decision to allow gay marriage I've finally found something to write about that I have a passion for. Beware, here’s where I’m going to come off sounding slightly douche-y. I’m already sick of hearing about gay’s right to marry. Now, having said my douche bag of a statement, allow me to back peddle a bit.

What I can’t wrap my mind around is how this is such an issue? Seriously, what is going on in peoples minds that makes them think, you know what? Fuck people in love marrying. We wont have it.

"All you need is love, love is all you need" - All you need is Love (The Beatles)

Marriage is not what it once was; it hasn’t been for quite some time. It would not be far from the truth to say that many of our laws are dictated by what used to be considered moral and normal.

I guess what I’m really getting at is, welcome to the fucking real world people. We’re out of the dark ages, women no longer have to be in the kitchen, black people can in fact get a job and dare I say it? Become president. The world is evolving; men no longer beat a woman over the head with a stone and drag them back to the cave (well, most don’t I’m sure some where a moron has done this.)

For people of the same sex, asking for the right to a civil union or marriage is the right to declare and establish a loving and long-term relationship with another person. It is allowing them the ability to raise a family and adhere to ideals of a marriage as any other couple would. They are not asking not for special rights, but rather the same to be able to have a say when it comes to the medical emergencies of a partner. They are trying to live their life as any heterosexual would in the pursuit of happiness and is that not what the constitution states as one of our inalienable rights?

Oh yea, I’ll tell you something, I think you’ll understand, When I say that something, I want to hold your hand - I Want To Hold Your Hand (The Beatles)

As a relatively progressive Roman Catholic (or used to be), my religion is against the marriage between two people of the same sex. It however, doesn’t make me any less catholic to be able to recognize the change and movement of our nation. There are many things stated in the bible that we don’t adhere to for example, in the book of Deuteronomy 22:22 it states “If a married person has sex with someone else's husband or wife, the Bible commands that both adulterers be stoned to death.” Further evidence is in Mark 12:18-17, “If a man dies childless, his widow is ordered by biblical law to have intercourse with each of his brothers in turn until she bears her deceased husband a male heir.” These are among several things that were held true in biblical times, which we do not perceive as being acceptable in the modern world.

Dear Prudence open up your eyes, dear Prudence see the sunny skies the wind is low the birds will sing that you are part of everything, Dear Prudence won't you open up your eyes? - Dear Prudence (The Beatles)

Okay, what I’m really saying here is, get your shit together world, we’re changing, we’re moving forward, lets try not to slip back into the dark ages, I’m not that great of a cook, and I have no desire to be a house wife. If I can have that choice as a woman, then everyone should be able to have a choice on whom they marry. Because seriously? I’m tired of this being a problem. And I’m tired of it having to be a triumph when some state decides to get their shit together.

Side note… who saw that coming from Iowa? I mean if Iowa can do it what are the rest of us doing with our lives.

“Everybody's journey is individual. If you fall in love with a boy, you fall in love with a boy. The fact that many Americans consider it a disease says more about them than it does about homosexuality.” ~James Baldwin

You can understand dependence When you know the maker's land

“So make your siren's call, and sing all you want I will not hear what you have to say Cause I need freedom now and I need to know how to live my life as it's meant to be”

I was going to write about how ridiculous I thought it was that a childhood friend deleted me from her Facebook after I went to this horrific of a time wedding shelling out thousands of dollars to be present on her magical day while she treated me like a leaper most of the weekend – But then I realized she wasn’t much of a friend. The wedding was pretty and she looked fantastic and happy, so in the end, I guess that is all that matters to her.

Not the fact that I’ve been there for her through so much, the death of her grandfather when according to her, her other friends weren’t. She was vaguely there for my grandmothers death, and only if it was convenient.

Well, I suppose I did write about it after all. But it's not about deleting me from Facebook and blocking me entirely. It’s about how she never once approached me to talk to me – she never once took my feelings into consideration. And, after 16 years of friendship, you would expect more. However, given the maturity of her, it only makes sense. And I know in her mind it was probably because I “didn’t want to see her happy” – And that is bullshit, but if that’s the lie she has to weave to justify her actions there isn’t much I can do at this point. In the end I was a decent friend. Or at least I would like to think I was, however, I will never know because she wasn’t a woman enough to talk to me.

Which brings me to my next case, I have a hording problem – Not that I collect junk, but rather I collect these ‘friends’ and I keep them close to me in effort to have control over something tangible. Having moved so often as a child and losing a lot of possessions It was like I made this silent vow to keep track of the friends I did have and hold on to some sense of normalcy of getting older with some friends. I remember when my step-dad told me that the friends I had as a jr high student would not be the same friends I had in adulthood. But through my hording ways, the core people I was friends with in Jr high with, are still people I consider my oldest and best friends.
I’ve got to realize when a friendship is just junk collecting clutter in my life and taking up too much of my emotional energy, and finally have the strength to clean out my ever so junked up emotional house and only keep the things that will enrich or bring meaning to my life.

Over a conversation with my aunt she mentioned how my friends were my life, how I depended too heavily upon them my whole life, more so than most. They were/are the feet I stood/stand on, they mean everything to me, and the reality of it is – They were this because of my inability to feel the love in my own home that I sought the approval and love elsewhere. Some of my friends are crucial in my survival this long.
But when is it that I stop living for them and start living for me?

The answer is now.

Because “I’ll find strength in pain” and “I have other things to fill my time, you take what was yours and I’ll take what was mine”

“Despite my faults and despite my growing fears, I will hold on hope.”

Dear Life,

I quit. You win.

Sincerely,

Me.

Change my attempt good intentions, should I? could I?

I’ve been carrying my camera with me lately; I’m hoping that by having it, it inspires me to take photos every day. I really need to get back into it. I need to get back into something- I need something to do to occupy my time, though, I don’t have much.

Isn’t that the problem though? We spend so much time trying to find time in our busy lives. I feel as though all I do is work to pay rent, outrageous rent at that. And when I get home, I just want to do nothing. Nothing that requires too much thought, I need to numb my mind and escape.

Speaking of escapes, summer has arrived everyone around me is buzzing with what they’ll do with the time. Well, everyone but me, because my paid time has been used.

My time has been spent on ridiculous snow days that render my vehicle unable to move from my street – but if I could have gone to work, I surely would have. There was a family death that for my own emotional reasons, I needed to be back in Arizona. And then there was a wedding that took much of my monetary resources, time and had so many disasters. And if that wasn’t enough, I felt unappreciated and left out of quite a bit -it took quite a bit out of me emotionally.

The bottom line is, none of this time has been used in a relaxing manner. None of my time off has been an escape. So with summer here, I feel like it’s going to be a long hard year and I can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.

This and many other reasons is why I need to get back into photography, so that I can discover my creative side all over again and bring my own light and find an escape.