It doesn't matter who's wrong or who's right....

Here’s the thing. Weddings are ridiculous. I’ve always thought this. They’re ridiculous things that drive girls mad. There is all this talk of becoming a bridezilla or the stress of trying to figure out who to have in the wedding and if you want people at all. You alienate people if you don’t ask them and hurt feelings of people who thought they were closer. What about the stress of becoming a Friend-zilla? I think I may have become a Friend-zilla.

My friend Katie got married in March, the wedding was beautiful, I may have teared up a bit. It was the perfect princess wedding. The one we women all dream about as little girls. And even thought Katie was sick, she was still the most beautiful bride I’ve seen and the perfect man received her, the sparkles in his eye when she walked down the isle and the way he looked at her. It was perfect. The whole wedding made me want one of my own despite my own protest of it being the last legal form of slavery.

But then there are the weddings that happen and maybe it’s just me, but I may be slightly hurt that I’m not even a part of it. I mean, listen, it’s not that I feel like the world is all about me or anything. It’s just that when people claim that you are their only “Girl” friends and that the only people they talk to are you, your other close friend and their fiancé you think you might be some part of their wedding.

Take my friend Aubrey for example. I’ve been friends with this girl since 4th grade. I’ve kept in contact with her through all of her moves from 6th grade thru her graduation from college. I always considered her a close friend. Then she gets this boyfriend and some how she’s changed. She’s not the same Aubrey, she’s changed and it hurts to see this change. She’s no longer interested in anything other than this boy. Things progress and now this boy and her are engaged. I got a “save the date” thing in the mail the other day. I’m let down because I thought I meant more to this girl. But her life now revolves around the boy. To me, its unhealthy to be that wrapped up in someone, but it could just me being hurt.

And then there’s the case of Ashley, my “Little sister” I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t completely upset when she made her boss the Maid of Honor. I thought for sure this was going to be the one wedding I would be Maid of Honor for – I’ve known her so long and I again, thought we were closer than we actually were. Maybe that’s my mistake? When I wasn’t MOH, I then shut myself down; I didn’t want to be in it at all then. So I told her this and she accepted it. She didn’t fight it. She just simply said “okay.” At the time I thought of how she was wronging me. She didn’t ask me to be in her wedding, I just assumed and shot her down before she could. And technically her sister is Maid of Honor, but her sister is 13….And maybe what I’m really angry about is the fact that I’ve lost that place of her best friend. I know I’ve done some of it myself; I pushed myself this way or pushed myself that way and upset her. And she’s done the same. So, I’m sorry to her for the strangeness I’ve been feeling about this whole wedding.

You know what, maybe I’m so bent on being in someone’s wedding right now. Wait, that isn’t entirely true because I don’t want to be in people’s weddings because I don’t want to be the blob in the wedding pictures, but then again, I do.
I’m finding myself getting too wrapped up in the idea of being in a wedding and wanting to be that help for the bride, that I forget that weddings are about what the bride wants. And that brings me back to full circle. It’s hard to be a bride. It’s hard to make decisions on whom to have, what to wear, and which toes you are stepping on.

But in my defense, it’s hard to be a friend who gets passed up.

I’m officially Friend-zilla.

I think too highly of myself and place more importance on myself. I am officially admitting I am ridiculous. I apologize.

Heart and Soul, So Completely...

My boyfriend told me he read my blog and I got embarrassed. I’m okay with thousand of unknown faces possibly reading what I write, Im even kind of okay with some family members reading what sometimes is the very dark depths of my heart. But when my boyfriend told me he read my blog and that I hadn’t posted anything new, my face got red and my mind started spinning.

Why?

Why would I not want to share myself entirely with this guy? I mean I fell for him. Am I even allowed to say that on such a short length of a relationship? Am I jinxing it by even saying that I have fallen for him? Why does the thought of him reading my words, my thoughts my desires or my fears embarrass me?

I can only speculate the answer, wonder.

I know that when I write all my “twisted thoughts free flow…” And perhaps I want him to see me in a different light. A less broken, more held together light. Perhaps I don’t want to appear to be so open, so known. The walls I build and protect myself with are non-existent in this “world.”
Perhaps my problem lies into the fact that he’s not much of a talker, he doesn’t like to open up and like most guys he doesn’t want to share his feelings. And this kind of irritates me a lot. I don’t want to nag but at the same time I don’t want to be the only one to share myself, to open myself up to heartbreak, to pain or to the knowledge and acceptance of all of me.

“We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.”– Eleanor Roosevelt

Just like a picture with a broken frame...

I had a hard time being at the reception for the Scholarship I received from school. I had a hard time because I was looking around and seeing people with family and support, and I allowed myself to sink.

Don't get me wrong, I know I have family behind me, I know that across the states I have people there excited about my achievements. I totally see that, and I am aware of thier presence. I allowed myself to fall into self-pity for what I didn’t have. What I couldn’t have. Events like this always seem to get me and I can never accept them as they are. I’m never able to just say:

“Listen Jennie, you will never have your mom be there to receive you after you achieve something. You will not have parents to give you away when/if you ever get married just like your parents didn’t put a dedication for you in the back of your high school yearbook. These are not the cards you were dealt, deal with it and move on.”

No I can never just suck it up and be happy in the moment. Instead I look at what I didn’t have there. I didn’t have a support system. I didn’t have anyone cheering as my name was called and I took the stage and posed with my scholarship donators. It’s not like I can blame anyone, I’m the one who choose to move to a state where I hardly knew anyone. I’m the one who decided I didn’t need to be close to family. So why am I so shocked when I look out in an audience and no one is there looking back on me?
I guess what really hits me is the fact that growing up, despite my mother being such a selfish ass hole, she did encourage me. She did tell me she was proud of me for being so smart. She would brag to her friends about me and they would constantly tell me how bright she thought I was. My mother said she never had to worry about me scholastically because I was just one of those students that “got it.” She never had to tell me to do my homework, because it was always done. And in my stupid longing for a mother and acceptance I wanted her to be in the audience witnessing my first Scholarship, not because I didn’t have the money to do something (though that was part of it.) I got a scholarship because I focused, and I managed to maintain an awesome GPA. I have something to be proud of and in this moment, I wanted my mother there.

And that in and of it self disgusts me.

I just finished the most wonderful story....

I get excited when I get a new book, not just for the pure pleasure of reading it, but also because when I’m finished it will take its place among the others with my ever growing collection of books. I know I’m not alone in this fascination with binding, and paper stuck together with carefully worded stories and information printed upon pages. No, I know it’s a club, a possible sickness.

I’m a slight hoarder of books.

I even keep the ones that have managed to get water damaged in the many moves I’ve made. Yes, water damaged. I said it, It has happened. Yes, I am the one to blame.

Awhile back the bookshelf I bought at Target collapsed as I was trying to set up a photo shoot in my would-be dining area. All of my books went tumbling to the floor and for about a month they sat curled in the pink armchair that I got from my grandmothers bedroom. I don’t even know why I still have them. One was broken in transport, but yet they sit there – nestled by the stairs waiting to be noticed and loved.

I started cleaning one day and decided to move the books to the coffee table in the same corner where the shelf once stood. I thought, if nothing, it’d look a little cleaner. But they just sat in piles, untouched, unnoticed, not neatly set up cozy together. Every time I looked at them I could feel a pull in my heart. These books needed a home; they needed a shelf, a way to display them to the world. My goal is after all, to have my own library and collection of books. I want an entire room dedicated to books. I also want a darkroom, so I imagine this fantasy house of mine is going to need a lot of rooms to fit my desires, and you know what, eventually I know I will get there.

But for now, I have a coffee table of books… That was until I bought a bookshelf and my roommate Emily put it together. I had her do it because the last one I put together and we see how well that worked out. Within the hour after some grunts, some curse words and a lot of noise, I had a bookshelf again. I was excited and eager to give my books a home again. I picked up each one, remembering what they meant to me as I read them, felt their papery pages between my fingers and carefully set them on the shelf. Smiled. I could feel the books becoming whole again. Becoming more than discarded. Remembered, cherished and loved.My books have a home, my heart has found a home and I, for the first time in my life feel like I belong. The books are me: they’ve fallen, they’ve been on the floor, they’ve sat unnoticed in a corner, they have been damaged, torn and carefully taped back together then moved and jostled onto a boring coffee table but now they can breathe easy because they have a home.

I can breathe easy because I am home.

The Show Must Go On....

So I lost my temper for the first time in front of the 4-year-old I watch. I mean that in a way that I finally just lost it and threw my own temper tantrum of sorts.

It started yesterday, the itch in the back of my throat, in retrospect I probably should have taken that as a hint and not have trapeze through the snow-covered Central Park with Emily, but it was part of the list, and I can’t resist checking off items on “The List.” Besides, I had the afternoon off and a roll of film I needed to shoot… Central park seemed like a good idea.

I came home frozen to the bone and sniffling. The scratch in my throat had progressed to a stuffy nose and a lot of sinus pressure by nighttime. I woke up this morning wanting to hide from the world, but knew I needed to get in gear. Today’s plans began with the kids and then photography in the evening it couldn’t be that hard.

I spent the first hour of work cleaning up some toys while the boy wonders were at a doctor’s appointment. It was peaceful, I had the Ipod thumping and the groove was in, but I was still sluggish. My nose would switch from stuffed to clear then back to stuffed again within a few minutes. This is when my patience with things began to wear thin and no one was even around. It was only the toys and I.

Luke came in already throwing questions at me left and right before I could fully grasp the concept that they were here.

“What do they have at a barber shop? Can we make one? Do they have a vacuum? Where are my razors, can I have a razor? What else do they have? Can we make a barber shop with those” He drilled me before he had even taken off his coat.

Graeme (Pronounced Graham) had a rash and was going to be taking some Benadryl and probably going down for a nap “E” informed me in between Luke’s spitfire of questions. Still hazed I nodded and began collecting Luke’s shoes and jacket, shuffling some more toys about in the process.

“E” slipped off into the safe confines of the office while Luke shadowed me and G was distracted by some toy. I began answering Luke’s questions and collecting things for use in the barbershop.Graeme distracted me by handing me his juice cup in effort for me to fill it and I realized I had to make the boys lunch and that the mom had mentioned it in passing again between the rounds of questions from Luke. I dragged myself into the kitchen, sipped some of my iced tea and began cutting up the already nuked hot dog for G.

“Do Barbers eat while they cut hair? Can I have this? Can you make me some Tea? Where do they eat their lunch? I want iced tea, Can you make me some iced tea? How come they don’t put a lot of chicken in this soup? Is this for kids? Do they have kids kind? How come it’s just for adults.”

Most days I love Luke’s onslaught of questions, he’s very inquisitive and it makes me smile. I hope he never loses that wonder, but I know he probably will. I dissect each question but not at a quick enough pace and Luke begins to lose patience with me.

Meanwhile, my nose is still a facet and I’m doing everything in my power to control my temper.

The next few hours are the same thing. Luke pounds me with questions and we build things. A Castle/Fort where he dubs me the Queen and Knights himself, I smile at this point because he thinks enough of me this time to make me Queen, last time I was his Page.

After G wakes from his nap I shuttle the boys upstairs to build yet another contraption, this time a covered landscaping Truck to be made out of these Knex-like plastic rods and balls. And as I’m working on this G gives me his “I’m-going-to-be-up-to-no good” and then trots off to his brothers room, the contraption has already broken 3 times while I’m in the process and I finally snap, throwing some of the sticks and balls across the floor I shout, “YOU DO IT!” and then stop off to figure out what G has gotten into.

Luke follows me whining and bidding that I help him by doing it and that I always help him. I realize after I’m out of the room that the show I just put on is hardly the example that needs to be set for this child who already has trouble with his emotions. I herd G back downstairs into the toy room and begin picking up the pieces explaining to Luke that he has to help and that we are going to build this together.

“Like a team?” he asks.

“Exactly.” I respond checking my clock, knowing that my patience is gone and that I need to regain control of myself.

I finish the day in a darkroom, my Ipod pumped full blast and a can opener in my hand. I am at peace as I work my way into the film containers and feed the film onto the reels to be developed. I think back on today and how I lost my temper and know, “the show must go on.”

Synovial joints are what?

On a serious note, I never learned how to study. Seriously. I don’t know how to do it. I’ve never had to. I’ve made it through my school years just naturally retaining information and that stuff that I didn’t retain, in my mind wasn’t meant to be retained.

I never got the idea of studying mentally, It just didn’t compute. I remember a friend and I were going to take the PSAT’s and she told me she couldn’t hang out because she had to study for the exam. She spent the entire weekend studying for this exam and in the end, scored lower than I did, and the most studying I did was reading a book.

I’m not trying to say “Oh I’m so smart” cause if I was, I would know how to study wouldn’t I? I’m saying that I’ve gotten by thus far not studying that I never developed how to do it exactly. I mean I get that you can sit there and pour over a chapter over and over again until you’ve memorized it, but that kind of scares me? Also, my attention deficit would never allow it. My focus would be off and I wouldn’t be able to recall a thing when it came down to it.

Maybe I could write everything I wrote down. They say writing things repetitively helps retention. Is that what I need to do? Is that even necessary? How do people study? I don’t get it?

I’m annoyed because I’m taking a remedial science course because the last science class I took was 10 years ago. I’m not annoyed that the class was 10 years ago, but rather that I’m struggling with basic concepts. I’m finding this remedial course to be extensively hard. Despite being able to just pick up on things, I can’t seem to get this going. I can’t pronounce half the words in the book and that frustrates me to no end. I think that’s what really gets me. The scientific words, how things can’t just be simply said.

I would like to go back to when your “Leg bone connected to the knee bone” instead of your Femur is connected to your patella, and your tibia and fibula. Which is connected to some ligaments….

Get your head outta the clouds kid!

I need to focus. The past three weeks have been a complete haze where I feel like I am walking around in this fog. I’m smiling and I am happy, but I seem to be slacking in my everyday responsibilities.

You know, the ones where I actually do my schoolwork and show up to class? Listen, my brain has been preoccupied with the idea of a crush. I have one. It’s slowly consuming my every thought pattern. Psychology of personality becomes “I wonder what he’s doing, I’m going to text him to see.” And Photography turns into me staring at a photo I took of us on my phone. I feel like a drug addict consumed in the thought of when I will get my next "fix." When will I hear his voice? See his smile. When will I be able to kiss him and hear him tell me how beautiful I am and how much he loves to see me smile. Cause really, this kind of drug can never get old. It is such an amazing feeling to me, a rush. I'm pretty sure in the past, I've never felt this sort of crazy rushing feeling. But its consuming.

I need to get back to the place where my mind isn’t wandering and I focus more. Concentrate on what is in front of me and allow myself to fall into a better routine where I organize, prioritize and make sure I am doing what I should be doing.
That being said, I find myself constantly in a bright and sunny mood. I love this me better than any me I have ever been, and it truly doesn’t have to do with the prospect of Daniel in my life; though he sure doesn’t hurt.

It has to do with figuring out who I am, what I want and just letting go of things that bother me. I’m allowing myself to live without the fear, without the voice in my head telling me I’ll never be good enough, because for the first time in a long time, I feel good enough, if not better. I can and will do anything.

On the Brooklyn Side...

I haven’t written anything as of late for fear that I would just babble on and on about this boy that I have and how he makes me light up, and he does. I haven’t written about it because I know when I read things like that it makes me gag. Sure someone is happy, sure it’s great to see that, but also, it makes me gag.

So instead, I’ll write about the Brooklyn Bridge.

The fact that I love bridges really does throw me off a bit, because I fear going over them. I fear that they will collapse and I will be on them. I have much of that same fear of walking over subway grates in the city. I fear that I will be walking on them and my weight will cause them collapse. Never mind the fact that nearly everyday several people walk over these grates and bridges and make it over just fine. In the back of my mind that little voice says, but what if today is the day. And so I avoid walking over grates in the city, taking the longest route possible to not have to step on one because the moment my foot touches one, my heart clenches and I get seized with a panic. So, I avoid them.

Bridges however, I cannot avoid. Living in Arizona most of the bridges I saw were over dirt and even then there weren’t that many. Living in New Jersey I can’t drive 10 miles without having passed over 3 or more bridges. Rivers are everywhere, and they’re actually riverbeds, not dried up. Even now I still get a kick out of going over a bridge and seeing water below. So you could say I’ve managed to overcome my fear of bridges. I no longer feel my heart seize in panic, but rather a weird calming euphoria feeling. So what is it about the Brooklyn Bridge that makes it my favorite bridge?
The first time I went to the Brooklyn Bridge was circa my 23rd Birthday. It was rainy and cold. But I stood there in aw starring at this massive structure that I had fallen in love with through only pictures. It was the most beautiful bridge I had ever seen with its massive arches lit and twinkling in the rain. And it would become a beacon for me a place to go when I felt restless.

While the Brooklyn Bridge is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the U.S and history does appeal to me, that isn’t what gets me. It’s not that it was one of the longest suspension bridges in the world and its not that its over 125-years-old, though that’s pretty impressive too. Come to think of it, I can’t really name what I love so much about this bridge, what I can say is that when I stand below it I feel at home.

Only by the Night...

Only by The Night by Kings of Leon. Let’s talk about this whole album and how it relates to my life, because quite frankly, it’s a current soundtrack to my life these days.
1. Closer – This song actually sways two ways for me. It has a lot to do with me following my heart on two agendas and one of them breaking apart on me. Falling in love with someone who doesn’t love you back really can leave you feeling “Stranded in this spooky town” and living in New Jersey, more than once I have felt stranded. But I also look at it in a brighter light in that the dreams that I had as a child were not “Get married, have kids” unless the person I was marrying was a backstreet boy (Listen, I still cling to the hope, even though he’s married.) I realize that marriage and kids were never something I HAD to have, but school was. I had to have a college degree. I remember being seven and thinking that I was going to go somewhere great. Stanford, Harvard or Princeton. At a young age I had my eyes set on something bigger, better. “And it’s coming closer”

2. Crawl – This song relates to a lot of my rage and anger that I’ve had lately. To me it’s a an anthem to learn to be humble when its needed. The idea that you need to crawl before you walk. Knowing this I can push it forward and learn to forgive before I can forget. And really I just love the guitar riffs in it.

3. Sex on Fire – “You, your sex is on fire.” Or as Luke, the 4-year-old I watch says, “I want to hear the ‘on fire’ song.’ This song speaks to me in a way that sex does for most. It’s desire, its passion; it’s a longing and need. As adults it’s a basic need. It’s a cause for pain; it’s a cause for distressed. Married people go to marriage counseling to discuss where their desire for sex has gone. Magazines write about how to get the passion back. For me it’s about my desire I’ve had for life as a young kid. As an adult I feel it’s my passion to be bigger (hopefully not in the pant size) and greater than I am. It’s a passion, a fire, and a need. “Consumed with what’s to transpire.”

4. Use Somebody – It’s their hit, I heard it once and loved it but never really thought much about it, I didn’t even know who sang it, just that I liked the song. On a personal note as a single fat girl, I’m constantly wondering if someone will ever notice “someone like me.” And the opening line is a dead ringer for how I have been most of my life “I’ve been roaming around always looking down at all I see, painted faces fill the places I can’t reach.” Lets dissect what “painted faces” means to me. For me it was my desire and need to be my friends, to be as beautiful and popular as Kristin, or fun and flirty like Elizabeth. I looked at my friends and wanted so badly to not be the fat kid and to be them. They were my painted faces filling the places I couldn’t reach. Back to this being their hit. Luke loves this band, he talks about them because it’s his dad’s favorite band (he says.) Then one day I’m sitting in the car and I hear the song and the DJ says that its Kings of Leon and it was a light bulb that hit. I am a fan.
5. Manhattan – Uh? Do I really even need to explain this? Honestly. I moved to New Jersey to be closer to it. It’s my candy store. “ We’re gonna fuel this fire, gonna stoke it up, we’re gonna sip this wine and pass the cup. Who needs avenues, who needs reservoirs, gonna show this town how to kiss these stars.” This town makes me feel like something bigger and better. But it also makes me feel small. It’s amazing that it has this ability to make me feel two opposing ideas. I love it for the magic it makes me feel and the fire that it lights for me.

6. Revelry – For me this is about the loss of my grandma. The lyrics speak of a romantic love but what I drive from it is the thought and emotions of feeling my grandmother’s presence so often in my life. It doesn’t seem to get better to me. Specifically there’s a line that says “just know it was you who had a hold of my heart, but the demon and me were the best of friends from the start.” Speaks volumes on the relationship I had with her. I loved her, I hated her, I wanted her to notice me and I acted out in all the wrong ways possible. I struggle so hard with this. I can talk about and I can confess my thoughts and emotions but I can’t seem to let it go, can’t seem to find my peace.

7. 17 – Okay, it’s me. Exactly me. I’m 17 stuck in a 25-year-olds body. My thoughts are often immature, but my intentions are mostly wise and older. “Oh she’s only 17, wind and wind and wound up over thing…” I get so caught up in my lack of childhood, the idea that I hurt more than I felt good.

8. Notion – “So don’t knock it, you’ve been here before” is a tribute to me knowing that I am not alone in my thoughts that someone has always felt the way I felt and I’m not alone. It’s also a tribute to going with my gut instinct on things and say how I feel. Cause “I’ve got a notion to say what doesn’t feel right.”

9. I Want You – This is, exactly as the lyrics have it. It’s about wanting something that is bad for me. Something that doesn’t do anything for me. I relate to that in my relationships with friends that are more poison than good. And I want them, like it used to be.

10. Be Somebody – I put this song on to inspire me when I feel like I’m getting nowhere. I put it on when I need to remember what I keep fighting for. What I want out of life. I want to do more than survive; I want to make an imprint.

11. Cold Desert – Well if this isn’t the anthem for the inner Emo me. This reminds me of the failure I had to a choice I was making. It holds me accountable for my actions and pushes me to see the error in my thinking. “I’ve always been known to cross the lines.” Speaks of my “spunk.” How I push the limits and need to be heard. My cousin commented about how even at a young age I had to push myself into the center of things. It’s true then and now. I need to be seen and I need to be noticed. So I’ve taken myself out of the cold of the desert to shine.

But it also heals your soul...

“When the morning came I was up before first light…”

I woke up unusually early for myself this morning. Like a good student the night before my first day of class I attempted to get to sleep earlier than I usually do and I was in bed and asleep before midnight. This is actually a pretty good feat for me as my night owl habits often have me up into the wee hours of the morning.

“My heartbeat started pounding a rhythm in my brain, a voice from deep inside said you’ve gotta be insane…”

I’ve found myself lately really clinging to the lyrics of a song. I learned as a musician it’s often the melody and the music behind a song that really make it a song. As a writer I look at that as more of a supporting actor type role, unless you’re going entirely instrumental, in which case it definitely has a starring role. For the most part, it’s the supporting actor; at least in my plays.

“A melody is like seeing someone for the first time. The physical attraction. Sex. But then, as you get to know the person, that's the lyrics. Their story. Who they are underneath. It's the combination of the two that makes it magic.” – Music and Lyrics quote.

So what is the point of all this rambling on and on about music and lyrics and sleeping or not. It has to do with the influence that music has had on me to be happy. To go to work each day and see it as a good thing rather than something I don’t want to do. I’ve found that the more positive I am about the day, the better day I have with the kids. I want to use this motto in everything that I do so that when I do find myself slipping down the backwards slope into a depression, I can look and see how it really is.

“I don’t want to turn me into something that I’m not, keep me close in mind and body you are all I’ve got.”

In my self-discovery I have found myself to be harboring a bit of rage and anger. And by a bit, I mean an unusual amount. In this anger I also find myself wanting to bite back, and bite back hard to those who have misused me in the past and those who are still doing so now. Instead of just letting these feelings roll into the “suppressed feelings” jar I keep in the back of my mind, I’m finding that these feelings want to spring forth, that perhaps the jar is now full and is now seeping out, it’s demon springing forth ready for revenge.

“And when it rains on this side of town it touches everything. Just say it again and mean it we don't miss a thing. You made yourself a bed at the bottom of the blackest hole and convinced yourself that it's not the reason you don't see the sun anymore…”

The way my brain works is there will be a trigger, something said, something realized, something heard. And from that it melts into something so warped and nothing as it was when it began. A domino effect where I can “convince myself I don’t see the sun anymore.” And I will find myself at the bottom of a blackest hole. I have found myself at the bottom of that hole more times than I would like to count and I have seen the effects it has had on the people around me, and I think that makes for some good news.

“Open me up and you will see, I'm a gallery of broken hearts, I'm beyond repair, let me be and give me back my broken parts… I just want to be okay..”

So maybe in my attempts to realize, rationalize and grow I need to learn to forgive? I know that it’s not easy to forget especially for someone like me, but perhaps I can work on forgiveness.

“Sometimes mature just means over my head and I don’t really know what I’m saying”

And that is where my writing and music are going to be more important in this healing process. I’m using my writing to flush myself of these negative thoughts and emotions. I’m using it to remind myself of the positive things in my life to see things in the “rose colored” glasses again. And the music to remind me how good “sex” can be, most importantly to know the story behind myself, to relate on that level. To dissect who I am underneath and find ways to explain myself.

“I wanna feel a car crash, cause I’m dying on the inside. I wanna let go and know that I’ll be all right, Alright. Push me till I have to fly, I shed my skin, my scars. Take me deep out past these lights, where nothing dims these stars…I’m wide awake and so alive…”

Touch me, touch me baby, but don't mess up my hair...

Early on I learned as a female that shopping could make you feel better, we call this retail therapy. I knew pair of shoes or a new shirt was an easy way to cure the blues.

When I first started talking to my ex boyfriend, I told him I judged the week and or day by what I got that day. He later began asking me if it was a one shirt or two shirts kind of day and I would respond accordingly, sometimes saying that it was a no shirt kid of day. Meaning that I had not bought anything. I imagine I inherited this shopping problem from my grandmother, she was kind of queen of QVC and I was queen of buying new shirts.

And then I discovered hair dye in a whole new way and that was something I could change instantly and feel better about myself without adding to my wardrobe of too many shirts. And this has been a trend for me since my mid teens. My hair color was ever changing in high school as I discovered who I was, what I wanted and how I was going to get it.

Whenever I feel like my life is out of my control my hair color is something I can control. The best part is, no matter what color I do, I can manage to pull it off. I have the kind of complexion that can be paired with blonde; brunette, red and even black and still look like it was meant for me. I love my hair/face for this reason. And so this past weekend I found myself browsing the color isles of Sally’s Beauty Supply looking for some control. I found it in L’Oreal Dark Brown.

I feel in control, and I love my new hair color. I feel fantastically beautiful and ready to take on the new school year.

Back then I didn't know why, Why you were misunderstood

I am very angry with my mother. The mere thought of her contacting me makes my skin boil and my eyes darken.
It wasn’t always that way. For a long time I always had a soft spot for my mother, she was after all the women who gave birth to me and she was so good at spinning words, ideas, and dreams in my head that it was hard for me to not believe her when she would tell me things were going to be better. No I didn’t always hold such anger and resentment towards her, in fact she was often the one I sought comfort in.

When I was 10 and seemed to have sat in something that caused my white pants to be stained in red. My sister asked me if I had started my period and she asked me in a way that made me think that a period was bad. Something forbidden like reading dirty magazines or thinking about sex. I remember holding back tears, running into my mother’s room leaving my friends who had spent the night behind and crawling into her arms to cry softly.

I was horrified and I remember sobbing and telling my mother I was sorry and that I didn’t mean to. She held me in her arms petting my hair and wiping my tears explaining to me that a period was not a bad thing and that it was something all women would experience. Her eyes filled with tears as she told me that her baby was growing up and becoming a woman. She told me when she got her first period she had laid on basement floor crying, convinced she was dying. I can still smell the Smokey smell of her skin and hair from her 2-pack a day habit. I remember her raspy laugh when I apologized and the way she was able to comfort my fears and ease my tears. I remember laying there in her arms and feeling safe, feeling okay.

For being such a smart kid I’m not sure why I never caught on to the fact that my mother was sick and truly needed help. I just knew I wanted to believe her and so I did. It wasn’t until I was in my twenties that the rose colored glasses finally came off and I finally saw my mother for what she was to me. Even in her sickness I still cannot find it in my heart to forgive her. I began to resent her for fighting to keep my siblings and I when we could have been placed in better homes. I resented her for using my grandparents instead of raising us. I resented the lies she fed us. More so now than then I resented the lack of structure and the constant state of moving. It has left me so completely lost in myself and insecure of stability.

I began to feel anger and hatred for her actions and started blaming her for the way I was and the person I was becoming. Maybe if she would have loved us more and wasn’t so selfish we wouldn’t be such a broken family. I would not be such a broken person. It is very hard for me to not dwell on these ideas as many of my friends are getting engaged and my own sister talks of marriage and with my grandmothers passing, I find myself now more than ever wanting a mother. Because I listen to my friends talk about mother daughter situations and I see how the kids I nanny for interact with their mother and I find my soul searching for that same bond.

So perhaps it's reasons like when I pass by that diamond shaped bottle filled with its amber liquid I instinctively pluck it from the counter and inhale it. It has the power to take me back to the times when my mother was a beautiful person and things would be good. The irony being that the smell of her perfume always meant she was going somewhere and would be gone for awhile one and two days at time. My brother Michael and I knew the cue as we sat in our living room fighting over what to watch that anytime the wavering scent of Tresor By Lancome came into the room we would both instinctively stop what we were doing and shout “Where are you going mom? Are you coming home tonight?” Because we knew that regardless she would be spending Sunday in bed sleeping after an extensive night of alcohol and drugs.

And yet still, even knowing what her weekends entailed, the aroma of Tresor still is innocent to me and I miss the mother who held me in her arms and calmed my fears.

I wont tell them your name...

Someone asked me to tell them a story about something I did in high school that was crazy. And so I started to think about myself in high school and my brain wasn’t flooded with the loneliness I felt nor was I reminded of the teenage angst I had but rather the few close friends I had when I was in high school and the stupid things we did.
My friend Kristin probably could have convinced me that the sky was purple and it was the reason we had to ditch our next class (generally the class following our lunch period.) Or maybe it was that I didn’t need convincing to know that whatever we did instead would be epic.

One particular morning as Kristin and I were walking to class from the lower parking lot of our ever massively sprawled out school I watched as Kristin pretty much ate dust and I can’t remember if she broke her zipper or if this was the time she tore her jeans. It was just before our first class and as she fell I remember laughing because she was carrying a Frappacino in her hand and I saw as she risked impact with her face to the dirt so that she would not break the starbucks glass bottle. Really, the fact that Kristin fell wasn’t the shocker; she would trip on a daily basis so it wasn’t like “remember that time you ate shit?” Because the answered for her would be “Which time?” it was that she stood up, looked at me and said, “Ugh, lets just go home.” So we turned around not even taking more than 15 steps onto campus and left.

Or how I was in the same spot as the fall incident when she approached me said, “My zippers busted, lets go get ice cream.” And again, I we left sliding into the seats of my ever-growing trashcan of a red Honda civic and bailing on yet another class.

It’s not that I’m all for ditching classes because I really did love school, it was a time in my life when I was able to focus on something that wasn’t my life. I could fade into the history lesson and be warped into whatever time period we spoke about. It was a time when I could slide into seat at the back of the class and slouch into my own little world and be safe from my real life. But there was something about the times Kristin and I were together that fills me with such joy and nostalgia.

Like the time we left class both dressed in black skirts and heels and decided that taking my 88 Honda civic off road would be the best idea we’ve ever had. Okay, in Hein sight I see why the car died. Would I have done it differently? I’m not sure, because wouldn’t it figure that the road we’re on out in the middle of Marana that happens to have less traffic would be the road that suddenly became I-10 when one afternoon after a rain I would get my car stuck in a wash. She’d warned me before I did it “That’s a wash” she said as I turned the wheel and within moments was spinning my tires and burring my poor “Putt-Putt” deeper into the sand.

While attempting to dig the car out or push it backwards we would duck behind the car whenever another car passed feeling like idiots for being stuck in the wash and unwilling to accept assistance until it became finally clear that there was no way my car was going to come unstuck and someone had to pull it out.

So maybe I wasn’t the most popular girl and maybe among an 800+ student body I seemed to melt into the unknown, but I was definitely somebody to the few friends I had and I looking back on my high school years I remember the funny moments spent with some incredible friends. Most of us survive high school because of the friends we have, I continue to survive life because of these same friends.

Between the line of Fear and Blame...

I remember sitting in my office at work, my head hung down and propped in my hands. I had just come off “Grandma Watch” as my cousin Elspeth had just gotten in the night before with her son. My eyes were swollen from crying, my body ached from the lack of sleep and my head pounded with the replay of our last argument.

When my grandmother fell ill and my aunt needed to return home to take care of things I was assigned the task of staying the night and helping her with things when I was off work and during the day various of our relatives would come stay with her.

It was always important to my grandma that I did work and that I never took time off. She often scolded me when she got wind of a day or time off that I took when it was not necessary in her book. Which meant everything. Nothing was necessary to her. Doctor’s appointments should be scheduled before or after work, or during lunch.

I remember our last fight being about my inability to cope with her situation. I read about others ability to cope and deal with being a nurse to their dying family and I hang my head in shame. I told her I couldn’t deal with it. I told her that it was hurting me so bad to see her the way she was. She was scared enough and I told her I couldn’t handle it. As if she didn’t have enough on her plate, she yelled violently at me, as she was known to do. She let her words whip out in anger and they cut sharp into the core of my being. Her venom sunk in as I cried. I cried for her, I cried to a god I didn’t believe in and I begged for her to get better.

That would be the last lucid moment I would have with her before delirium took its toll. And so I sat the following morning after this fight, breathing, thinking and trying to recoil myself from the past nights. I needed to get away; I needed to take a deep breath away from this tragedy that I was facing.

I picked up my phone and sent a text to my roommate.

“Lets go to CA tonight” and I pressed send.

I started my day’s work burying my emotions into printing, labeling and mailing documents that needed to be sent. In the last few weeks of my grandmother’s life I spent much of my time at work alone, away from everyone, which was strange in that I was the social butterfly of the office. Throughout that Friday I sent texts back and forth between my three friends Michelle (The Roommate), Nora, and Kat; mapping out the plan of driving San Diego, getting a hotel room and spending the day at the beach then returning that following night.

What I thought was just wishful thinking turned out to be something I truly needed. Hyundai Accent packed we grabbed our cameras, one ken doll, some clothes, drinks and stuffed our four bodies into the two door egg and began our trip. The night was cool and the car was soon filled with the scent of cigarettes and laughter. With Michelle and I taking turns on driving and Nora and Kat fading in and out of sleep for most of the ride. Well, mostly Nora slept; Kat did her best to be part of the crazy antics. The car ride included many energy drinks, a few packs of cigarettes (on my friends part), a few games of “Car flirting” and a couple guys flashed but most of all it included lots a laughter.

We wouldn’t get into California until a little after 3 AM and daylight was approaching fast so we settled on a Super 8 right off Interstate 8 on the hotel circle a few miles from beach. I remember sneaking Kat and Nora in the hotel room because we didn’t want to pay the extra for the two other people and staking claim on the half of the one queen bed before giggling off to sleep.

That trip we did exactly as we had planned. We spent the day at the beach getting burned and enjoying the cool Pacific Ocean. Laughed as waves knocked us over into each other, one specific time when my 5’3 friend came colliding face first into my boobs and the other face first into my butt because of a strong wave that knocked us all off our feet. I remember laughing so hard I had to walk to shore and sit on the surf because I couldn’t keep standing.

I look back and think about sitting on the beach snapping pictures of Ken on the beach, and watching seagulls swoop down and nabbing bits of Jalepeno Cheddar Cheetos or more specifically the seagull that had Nora shouting “Oh my god he took the fucking cup!” As one gracefully swooped down and grabbed an entire Styrofoam cup and flew off. And then we both threw ourselves back on our towls in laughter tears streaming from our eyes.
The day on the beach ended with a trip to Horton Plaza, a mall in downtown San Diego where I met up with a friend in California and allowed him to tear into me as no one has ever had with jokes. We laughed, joked, jabbed at each other and he starred at me like no other guy has before in my life. He saw through my tired hazel eyes and then did what any normal sarcastic individual such as myself would do. He tore into me like it was a Comedy Central Roast of Jennie, and I was still laughing.

Looking back I know I should have been spending every waking moment with my grandma and if I had known that the weekend before Easter would be her last weekend Alive I would have. But also looking back I realized that weekend with my friends on the beach saved me from myself. It saved me from falling into my own self-doubt; it saved me from crawling into a dark tunnel and lying there until everything blew over which as it is, still hasn’t.

My godmother Peggy said this to me Christmas Eve; “It seems like its only getting worse with time, its not getting better.” And I agreed.
Losing my grandma almost 2 years ago and I still can’t bring myself to erase her numbers from my phone. I still take a deep breath when I manage to scroll past her name. I still reach for the phone when I want to know what I’m supposed to turn the oven to when I need to make speedy fruit pie (aka peach cobber.) When I made green Jello over Thanksgiving at Kathleen’s house I looked for her body to be next to me on a stool asking me for some type o seasoning. I still drive past her house when I’m in town.
She was more than my grandmother, she was the person who tried with all her abilities to make sure my siblings and I had somewhat of a normal life. She saved my family from a life on the streets. She came from the school of “tough love.” And I have her to thank for my “spiky-ness”, my dry sense of humor and unfortunately, my nose. She gave me the gift of life so many times over.

But I know that without Nora, Kat & Michelle and our escape to California when I returned early Easter Morning and she was gone the next day, I know that weekend would have been more than I could bear. And so, I don’t regret taking off, I don’t regret the escape. I just wish I could have been a stronger person for Jean, for my grandmother in her last week of life.

I'll pretend...

What is it about a broken heart that makes us want to pick ourselves off the floor and become the opposite of who we used to be? Why do we allow another person the control to leave us breathing haphazardly on the floor and wondering what we did wrong? What words where said that shouldn’t have been said?

What is it about heartache that makes us question everything we ever stood for and everything that we have become? Maybe if I was thinner, prettier, beautiful or more quite. What if I was more punk, or rock instead of who I am now?

Why do I have to change to be better? “It’s not you, it’s me.” I can’t deal with such bullshit spoon fed to people when a person cannot come up with something better or true to say, they use a cop out and that cop out leaves the broken hearted trying to figure out where they went wrong.

If only I’d talked more when we first met, was darker, older, smarter, or thinner.

I’m over feeling like I’m the problem.

Numbness for Sound

Eight years ago my life was marked with a moment that like the assassination of J.F.K would be a sharing point. Where were you when the world stopped turning that September day?

I was laying cold and alone in my apartment on Prince and Stone. Shivering beneath a blanket my alarm went off and news coverage was blaring talking about fires and buildings and people falling from them. I hit snooze and turned over, five more minutes I thought, I just need more sleep. But then, at this particular point in my life, sleep was all I ever wanted. I never wanted to be awake because to be awake meant I had to feel, to face another day. To battle my demons. The radio went off again, still news reports, I shut it off, got up and readied myself for the day.

I remember driving up 1st avenue towards Ina listening to the local 93.7 station and thinking, “God, John Jay and Rich are freaking ridiculous, are they trying to do another war of the worlds type broadcast? These clowns will stop at nothing.”

And then I switched to another station, and then another, and then another it was all the same broadcast. When I entered my classroom an eerie paralysis fell over everyone, TV’s were on everywhere and everyone was watching live coverage of New York City with its skyline covered in smoke and the twin towers on fire. Terrorist had struck the towers with planes and people were dying. My mind became numb and in the next series of weeks I fought my love for the country with my doubts. How could we let this happen? I decided that united we sucked because we should have seen something like this coming. Something had hit home for Americans and we spent the next year mourning it.

So why revisit this moment in the wake of Christmas? I when I was 23, I was fortunate enough to see the World Trade Center construction site for the first time. I was consumed by this chilling feeling, as I stood outside of gates that posted signs “Authorized Personnel Only” peeking through to look at what remained of what once was two massive buildings in the New York Skyline. When I was 24, I saw the two bright beams in the sky in remembrance of the catastrophic events that took place September 11, 2001 and I was taken back, gasped in awe of the tribute among the darkened cloudy skies.



And then this weekend after many trips by it I stepped into St. Paul’s Cathedral, the church that stood across the street from the World Trade Center, the same church that only suffered the loss of a massive oak, but left the rest of the building untouched, unharmed. I walked its grave yard path, looking at each tombstone, snapping pictures and capturing the moment. Nothing would prepare me for the wave of emotion that would come over me the moment I stepped into the hallowed out church.

People swarmed the areas, pausing moments at erected memorials for the lives lost. The church smelled of an old book, dusted off and brought to life. I paused a moment to “To The Heroes” one message wrote from Crawford Elementary at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska. Teddy bears, cards, notes, ribbons, balloons and flowered covered this spontaneous memorial that was erected in the following weeks after the fall of the towers. My hands trembled as I reached for my camera and snapped a photograph.


I moved on to the next, a statue of a figure covered in serviceman patches from all over the country. People gathering to show support for people they’d never met but felt a connection felt a need to be there for. For a moment I was there, could it even be possible for this type of transference? For me to feel the weight of the lives lost that day? To feel the pain these people felt having never lost anyone to something so heartless and tragic?



I moved to the center of the church pausing a moment at the altar to find my faith again. I knelt down, made the sign of the cross and stood. “Forgive me father for I have sinned,” I murmured to myself.

Looking up at the place where each mass would pronounce our sins washed away with the blood and body of Christ I realized that I hadn’t been in a church since my grandmother died almost 2 years ago. I had not felt my soul cleansed by theses sacrifices, and then I found myself standing in that church, a believer again.

I scanned the patrons of the church, some sitting, some praying looking up and to the back of the church a banner hung below the Organ read “To New York City and all the Rescuers: Keep Your Spirits up… Oklahoma Loves you!!” All over the banner were words and signatures from people again lifting their hearts and showing support.



“Artist Jessica Stammen used steel provided by city officials from the World Trade Center debris as the base for this 14-pound chalice. She cast a bronze sculpture of a tree trunk to evoke the Sycamore tree in St. Paul’s Churchyard that was struck down in the attacks. Two beams extend from the tree to represent the twin towers and the hands of gold enfold the top of the cup.”



Art really can move you. Even in the form of a cup or a Chalice. I stood there for a few moments in aw of what someone had created how they had so deliberately evoked an emotion in the strength of the piece but also the vulnerability of it all.

It was the final place I stopped to take in the loss of 9/11 that my emotions finally caved in. I stood staring at the ripped edges of an un-open birthday card that Read “Happy 40th Birthday” in cursive across the blue city-dirtied envelope. What was it about this card that crushed my nerve so quickly? Was it the fact that someone never got to read it? That the content of the card was like a postsecret secret waiting to be read, and a story to be told? Or was it the millions of pictures of people lost that day. Posted by friends and family.

Eight-years later and am humbled by an experience that moved me in ways I will never be able to articulate through words or art. Perhaps the danger of being human is more often than not that we are able to feel. I never thought something could have that big of an effect on me and as I was standing outside in the cool December air I looked to my side and saw my best friend standing there, both silent. I sucked in air, wiped my face and felt thankful for her, for everything that I have.

Recently I sent a short e-mail to my sister-in-law asking her what I should get for my nephews for Christmas, being across the country I’ve fallen out of step as to what they are into. I’m usually the boring aunt who is so enamored with fashion so much that I love buying clothes for my nephews. I enjoy dressing them in my own unique pull together of different things to create an outfit. I know as kids, this is annoying. Clothes on Christmas are completely boring and unwanted.

This year I was set on getting them toys of some sort. I remember I had made a phone call to Josh on his 3rd birthday. I spoke with him about what he did for his birthday and he explained to me that they sang a different kind of “Boothday” song. I smiled as I listened to how smart he was and how well he spoke remembering his brother’s early grasp of words and speech. When I asked to speak with Jeremiah the first words out of his mouth were, “Aunt Jennie, can you get me Legos for Christmas?”



I laughed but part of me hurt a little. Not that he was asking me for things, but that the distance that I had pushed between him and I had made it so that my only real responsibility in his eyes was to bring him presents when I saw him.


I had always been around in Jeremiah’s life watching many of his mile stones, living with my brother for much of Jeremiah’s early life provided connection. I was there to play with him, and show him how to throw up “the goat” and how to say “Rock and Roll!” or how to sing “Everybody backstreet’s back” Even though all he really ever said was “backstreet All right!” I took pride in introducing him to different types of music. I loved taking him to the movies, something that my Aunt had done for me, I wanted to do for him. Movies were our special thing, an outing when we would gorge ourselves on popcorn and share a drink. I watched cartoons with him and tickled him until he couldn’t breathe.



Of course living with him also gave him this “little brother” annoyance factor. Babysitting with him gave me this idea that I had to help keep him in line when he went off on one of his tantrums. I really lived by the tough love rule in my mind but often found it exhausting to keep up with all the constant changes and the lack of support from other older influences on Jeremiah. But I always look back on times when we would sit on my bed and he would have my headphones on listening to whatever it was I played for him.


When I think of him, I think of how within the first weeks or so of him being born I sat in his room on the floor listening to him breathe, the radio on low. He was so precious and little, the first baby in the family and my very first taste of what being an Aunt was.

And Then Joshua came along and I was an aunt two times over. His smile would light up the room and he had his own little personality budding along. He was clever and happy and Jeremiah was a good brother always fawning over his new little brother making sure he was okay. I knew that I wanted to be just as much apart of Josh’s life as I was his brother. I wanted to see all the milestones, to take him to the movies as my aunt did my sister and I. To show him how to do the “goat” and say “rock and roll.”




But then I wedge the country between us when I decided I needed to spread my own wings and fly. I’ve only spent a little over a year in New Jersey, but when I read the e-mail from my sister-in-law when she told me that Josh was a size 4T and Jeremiah was a size 7, I choked a little. The last time I checked, Jeremiah was still a 5T and Josh was 2T. I know very little about Josh now and almost nothing about Jeremiah. I no longer know what he’s really into and what things he likes. I’m not watching each of their milestones, I don’t get to see first hand the silly things they do, I can only see through pictures posted and I feel a little guilty for it.



It was very hard for me to leave them behind and still is. I am fortunate enough to be part of two other little boys lives as my job and it helps, but it definitely does not replace the love and the heartache I feel for how much I miss my nephews.