all i can do is be me. whoever that is.
- Bob Dylan
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Sunday, August 12, 2007
who to be with
"At the end of the day, when it comes down to it, all we really want is to be close to somebody. So this thing where we all keep our distance and pretend not to care about each other, it's usually a load of bull. So we pick and choose who we want to remain close to, and once we've chosen those people, we tend to stick close by. No matter how much we hurt them. The people that are still with you at the end of the day, those are the ones worth keeping. And sure, sometimes close can be too close. But sometimes, that invasion of personal space, it can be exactly what you need."
-Meredith Grey, Grey's Anatomy
we all kinda wanna be with somebody. everyone gets into phases of no, i wanna be alone, single is good, single is educational, single is pain-free... but then, we snag our friends, make them go out with us, go out and have fun and be with other people as much as we can coz they drown out the loneliness inside us. so even when we don't want to be in romantical relationship (ooh! new word again, i am genius), we still NEED to be around people. no man is an island.
and yes, we get picky. i have a tendency to stay around the people who pass my approval. and hell, if i don't like you, i don't like you. i get aloof and awkward and uncomfy... because i want the people to get the hint that i don't wanna be around them (and i think i'm too nice to be the person to turn them away myself. i'd rather be the person who got dumped, haha). but it's sad... the people i do choose to surround me and to be around with. they aren't as lucky as the people who don't get to be around me. those people, the ones who remain acquaintances, they're the people who know the surface level. who know the nail-width of my personality and no one puts the crappiest pieces of themselves in their facades. the people who get close enough are the ones stiuck with my whole imperfect package: my sarcasm, my tactlessness, my meanness, every part of me that is just too annoying for words. so even if the ones we isolate from ourselves are people we can't stand, the people we hurt are the people who know the real us. now isn't that ironic. but they stick around. because for some unknown saintly reason, they also decided that they choose you to stick around them, to know the real them, to feel the real quirks of their character. so maybe humainity entails being in a twisted, painful, mutually abusive relationship. but maybe, isn't that what we all can't live without.
and the person who made the extra effort to stick out their necks and risk themselves to get to know the super duper inner you? those are the people that have made it their life mission to fall in love with you. those are the people who have done far more than scale the tallest mountain and walk over flaming coals and take a class under Father Dacanay. they did the riskiest thing of all coz they got to know the crappiest, shittiest parts of you... and they decided to love crappy, shitty part of you as well. LOVE, geez. hard and harsh and shit, one of the best damn things in the world.
so yes, they are in your face. they chose to be in your face and annoy you by taking up your personal space. and don't you just love them for it?
we all kinda wanna be with somebody. everyone gets into phases of no, i wanna be alone, single is good, single is educational, single is pain-free... but then, we snag our friends, make them go out with us, go out and have fun and be with other people as much as we can coz they drown out the loneliness inside us. so even when we don't want to be in romantical relationship (ooh! new word again, i am genius), we still NEED to be around people. no man is an island.
and yes, we get picky. i have a tendency to stay around the people who pass my approval. and hell, if i don't like you, i don't like you. i get aloof and awkward and uncomfy... because i want the people to get the hint that i don't wanna be around them (and i think i'm too nice to be the person to turn them away myself. i'd rather be the person who got dumped, haha). but it's sad... the people i do choose to surround me and to be around with. they aren't as lucky as the people who don't get to be around me. those people, the ones who remain acquaintances, they're the people who know the surface level. who know the nail-width of my personality and no one puts the crappiest pieces of themselves in their facades. the people who get close enough are the ones stiuck with my whole imperfect package: my sarcasm, my tactlessness, my meanness, every part of me that is just too annoying for words. so even if the ones we isolate from ourselves are people we can't stand, the people we hurt are the people who know the real us. now isn't that ironic. but they stick around. because for some unknown saintly reason, they also decided that they choose you to stick around them, to know the real them, to feel the real quirks of their character. so maybe humainity entails being in a twisted, painful, mutually abusive relationship. but maybe, isn't that what we all can't live without.
and the person who made the extra effort to stick out their necks and risk themselves to get to know the super duper inner you? those are the people that have made it their life mission to fall in love with you. those are the people who have done far more than scale the tallest mountain and walk over flaming coals and take a class under Father Dacanay. they did the riskiest thing of all coz they got to know the crappiest, shittiest parts of you... and they decided to love crappy, shitty part of you as well. LOVE, geez. hard and harsh and shit, one of the best damn things in the world.
so yes, they are in your face. they chose to be in your face and annoy you by taking up your personal space. and don't you just love them for it?
the new year
so i'm going to fall for the whole "i'm going to be sentimental and talk about what the old year was like and what the new year is going to mean to me." because the new year started quietly and a little sadly. the past year was the toughest and saddest i've ever had. i don't know where i got this analogy but it stuck with me because it expressed the way i thought of life exactly. work, family, friends, love, and every aspect of life was a glass ball and the trick to it was to juggle them all and make sure they don't break. i feel like i skated through the past eighteen years with nothing on my shoulders. then this year hit and i had my hands in my pockets, or at least too full to catch them when they fell. i dropped each one and now they're full of tiny little cracks that i've got to mend. not a single one of them escaped breaking.
2006 tested how strong i was. i mean, family, friends... to sum up in two words how bad the year got, nikki died. you'd think i'd anticipate that after i saw how bad it got but nope. that's youth being an idiot, thinking we're invincible. there's a part of me that's never gonna get over that because he was one of the few people who could see when i was bummed and could make me feel okay that i wasn't smiling for five seconds and that just coz i laughed didn't mean i wasn't feeling like crap. he was someone you could be you with and that's rare. and there's a part of me that's never going to start kicking myself for being so freaking selfish that i couldn't tell him just once that if he was that tired, he really didn't have to hang on for everyone coz we could take care of ourselves. of course, he'd say he wasn't gonna give up but that's nikki for you. i'd be lucky and blessed if i were that strong.
and the rest of the stuff i went through, well, i'll keep that to myself.
all the superstitions for new year, like wearing polka dots and stripes, hanging on to a ceiling for height, making sure you're extra nice that day because that'll set the tone for the new year... well, quite frankly, i think it's idiotic and funny. but i'll indulge it because anything you can grab on to make you feel better, anything that'll make you feel hope? well that's worth a lot, in my book. but i can't really take the concept of a new year seriously. a new year never always means a new start. it just means the calendar's been set back to january with a different digit hanging off the end of the year. that's it. and the idea of the first day of the year being the basis for every single day of the rest... that's stupid. i'm not going to be hungry every lunchtime or annoyed i missed my show or grumpy every time i wake up (no, wait, that's the one thing that'll hold true always). everyday's going to be different, different actions, different moods, different choices, different.
i was going to try out for that guidon contest, the essay about what you'd tell your ten year old self. but i got stuck with so many choices. i could write about how life gets harder, how life gets more complicated, how life gets worth it. but there's only so many things you can say to a ten year old that they'll understand and they're all equally important. so what i'd tell my ten year old self and hope i'd understand is that life is choice. every darn thing about the world is a choice. the one thing that struck me and stopped me from writing that essay was my answer. i had too many choices.
a conversation with a friend got me thinking about choices and being fickle. i looked up fickle in the dictionary, it means erratic changeableness especially with regards to affections or attachments. and i don't think i really believe in the word fickle. why is there such a bad connotation to the word fickle? is it a crime to not know your own mind because you have so many options in front of you that you can't decide? if we all knew what we wanted, we'd be dead and in heaven. or at least in hell, because that would be so darn boring. there's always the thrill in changing your mind, the eureka moment when you realize that something is a better fit for you. that moment is one of those few enlightened times that you're one step closer to the neverending "who am i?" of life.
it's funny how a lifetime can feel like a whole dozen lifetimes. my dad dug up his old high school yearbooks and who would think my dignified, staid, really corny dad was a football quarterback mvp and a wrestler? or that he played lead roles in musicals? or that he was a bird-watcher (no, wait, i can imagine that. it's hella boring). see what i mean? why is a lifetime a lifetime... but you go through so many changes in life that you're not the you you started as. i read somewhere (a little hokey if you ask me) that you change your personality every seven years. if it were true, that explains a lot. i'm nineteen and i've gone through several changes in my life that the me who started out isn't me. or is it? (i'm getting confusing, haha) my teachers thought i could sing, i could be a ballerina, i could be a swimmer, i could be a debater, i could be an architect. and i'm none of those things now. several changes and i'm nineteen. if my personality were food, i'd be a shake.
i guess if i had to believe in fickleness, i couldn't possibly apply it to the real important things in life. fickle can be infatuation or adultery, in annoyance and a waste of money. but i can't possibly think of fickle as bad when you're thinking about the real person. life and people and progress present you with so many options that ordering a coffee is a freaking chore, buying an appliance is nerve-wracking and a word has so many different meanings to it... and you're not allowed to be fickle? then cut off life then coz you don't need the choices. it's gotten to the point that even not making a choice is a choice.
so ten year old abs, life in this current quarter life crisis of mine just means choices. tons and tons of choices of stupid things and little things and ginormous life-changing things. everything will start out from what YOU choose to do, and all the hardship and pain and happiness and love comes from your choice. and don't be scared of making the wrong ones because you could never lose yourself underneath all those choices, because it's not possible to be fickle about yourself. the things that make you you are the same things that still make me me. i still would rather sleep 3/4ths of my life away, stay up until 2a.m, maintain my sweet tooth, read everything and anything, be sarcastic and cynical and be a go-to rock. so i trust your choices are good ones.
what i'm driving at, i guess, i that this year, i think i only have one resolution. not just for the year but for the rest of my twisted, crazy, loopy, fickle life. i've just got to remember that life is a choice and it's my choice.
2006 tested how strong i was. i mean, family, friends... to sum up in two words how bad the year got, nikki died. you'd think i'd anticipate that after i saw how bad it got but nope. that's youth being an idiot, thinking we're invincible. there's a part of me that's never gonna get over that because he was one of the few people who could see when i was bummed and could make me feel okay that i wasn't smiling for five seconds and that just coz i laughed didn't mean i wasn't feeling like crap. he was someone you could be you with and that's rare. and there's a part of me that's never going to start kicking myself for being so freaking selfish that i couldn't tell him just once that if he was that tired, he really didn't have to hang on for everyone coz we could take care of ourselves. of course, he'd say he wasn't gonna give up but that's nikki for you. i'd be lucky and blessed if i were that strong.
and the rest of the stuff i went through, well, i'll keep that to myself.
all the superstitions for new year, like wearing polka dots and stripes, hanging on to a ceiling for height, making sure you're extra nice that day because that'll set the tone for the new year... well, quite frankly, i think it's idiotic and funny. but i'll indulge it because anything you can grab on to make you feel better, anything that'll make you feel hope? well that's worth a lot, in my book. but i can't really take the concept of a new year seriously. a new year never always means a new start. it just means the calendar's been set back to january with a different digit hanging off the end of the year. that's it. and the idea of the first day of the year being the basis for every single day of the rest... that's stupid. i'm not going to be hungry every lunchtime or annoyed i missed my show or grumpy every time i wake up (no, wait, that's the one thing that'll hold true always). everyday's going to be different, different actions, different moods, different choices, different.
i was going to try out for that guidon contest, the essay about what you'd tell your ten year old self. but i got stuck with so many choices. i could write about how life gets harder, how life gets more complicated, how life gets worth it. but there's only so many things you can say to a ten year old that they'll understand and they're all equally important. so what i'd tell my ten year old self and hope i'd understand is that life is choice. every darn thing about the world is a choice. the one thing that struck me and stopped me from writing that essay was my answer. i had too many choices.
a conversation with a friend got me thinking about choices and being fickle. i looked up fickle in the dictionary, it means erratic changeableness especially with regards to affections or attachments. and i don't think i really believe in the word fickle. why is there such a bad connotation to the word fickle? is it a crime to not know your own mind because you have so many options in front of you that you can't decide? if we all knew what we wanted, we'd be dead and in heaven. or at least in hell, because that would be so darn boring. there's always the thrill in changing your mind, the eureka moment when you realize that something is a better fit for you. that moment is one of those few enlightened times that you're one step closer to the neverending "who am i?" of life.
it's funny how a lifetime can feel like a whole dozen lifetimes. my dad dug up his old high school yearbooks and who would think my dignified, staid, really corny dad was a football quarterback mvp and a wrestler? or that he played lead roles in musicals? or that he was a bird-watcher (no, wait, i can imagine that. it's hella boring). see what i mean? why is a lifetime a lifetime... but you go through so many changes in life that you're not the you you started as. i read somewhere (a little hokey if you ask me) that you change your personality every seven years. if it were true, that explains a lot. i'm nineteen and i've gone through several changes in my life that the me who started out isn't me. or is it? (i'm getting confusing, haha) my teachers thought i could sing, i could be a ballerina, i could be a swimmer, i could be a debater, i could be an architect. and i'm none of those things now. several changes and i'm nineteen. if my personality were food, i'd be a shake.
i guess if i had to believe in fickleness, i couldn't possibly apply it to the real important things in life. fickle can be infatuation or adultery, in annoyance and a waste of money. but i can't possibly think of fickle as bad when you're thinking about the real person. life and people and progress present you with so many options that ordering a coffee is a freaking chore, buying an appliance is nerve-wracking and a word has so many different meanings to it... and you're not allowed to be fickle? then cut off life then coz you don't need the choices. it's gotten to the point that even not making a choice is a choice.
so ten year old abs, life in this current quarter life crisis of mine just means choices. tons and tons of choices of stupid things and little things and ginormous life-changing things. everything will start out from what YOU choose to do, and all the hardship and pain and happiness and love comes from your choice. and don't be scared of making the wrong ones because you could never lose yourself underneath all those choices, because it's not possible to be fickle about yourself. the things that make you you are the same things that still make me me. i still would rather sleep 3/4ths of my life away, stay up until 2a.m, maintain my sweet tooth, read everything and anything, be sarcastic and cynical and be a go-to rock. so i trust your choices are good ones.
what i'm driving at, i guess, i that this year, i think i only have one resolution. not just for the year but for the rest of my twisted, crazy, loopy, fickle life. i've just got to remember that life is a choice and it's my choice.
Abbi, you're looking for a Frisky Fling
You're ready for an adventurous, free-spirited affair to remember. And if it comes in the form of someone who shakes up your world a bit, helps you expand your horizons, then decides to stay for awhile — all the better. It's not that you don't want a serious relationship. It's just that you might rather get there with someone who's equally committed to having fun for now. Ever wanted to drive up the coast or across your town in a red convertible? Interested in staying at a restaurant so late the chef himself joins you at the table for a late night cappuccino? Or are you really more into a no-strings-attached companion? For some people, a good fling starts with someone you can spend the whole day in bed with — whether you're under the covers or playing cards in your PJs. But for others a fling is just a light-hearted approach to finding a different way to spend quality time with someone new.
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