Hardcandy Christmas

Today is Christmas. 
It’s been a year and I have come to understand why suicide carries the stigma it does. People like me sweep it under the rug and don’t dare to say it aloud because it is easier.

After it happened, I cried and then never talked about it.

I tried to figure out what it meant and what it was.

-It was hearing my mother scream.  This is something that doesn’t belong in real life, only movies.  Hearing a person scream in utter terror and agony is impossible to describe and impossible to forget. Pain becomes tangible. It echoes.  This sound is one I will hear forever.
-It was dialing 911, trying to articulate what I saw and having no words, only broken phrases and shallow breaths. “Killed herself,” I said.  “Dead, I think she’s…”
-It was seeing and not believing. My mom, me, and a body we couldn't look at.
-It was a frail survivor.  A person I spent the last 365 days treating like a corpse. 
-It was an upheaval, a new house in February.  A home I didn’t get to say goodbye to.
-It was hearing the strongest person I know cry in the shower.
-It was screaming profanities and shaking so badly I don’t know how I stayed standing. 
-It is the inability to forgive.

So it is these screams, these painful moments and the tears that followed that I have carried in my pockets along with a holiday that’s scratched beyond recognition.  They make it a little harder to smile and they made me a lot less pleasant to be around. 

Reality: Sometimes people try to kill themselves.  Sometimes they actually do.  Either way, there are always people left behind, broken because they weren’t enough to live for.

It’s Christmas.  It’s been a year. And that’s all I know for sure.

Love Letters

Dear September,
You make me cold. 

Dear Senior Year,
You make me smarter.

Dear Two Jobs,
you make me tired.

Dear Sarah,

You make me tough and buff.

Dear Mom,

You make me breathe and sometimes you make me drunk.

Dear Travis,
You seem much taller lately.

Dear Jordan,

I appreciate that you always take time to hydrate. 

My Very Last Lutheran Night

My Last night in Valpo.
My Last desk shift.
My Last Camp.
Hot Damn, it's even the last time I will ever wear this polo.

Día del Padre

Happy Father’s day, Mom.  You’ve been a great dad.

• Because you taught me to find solace on the road.  
• 2005:  you put 1,220 miles between me and my problems that seemed so momentous at the time.  This infected me with the wanderlust and forever changed me. 
• Because you always hand back the five when they give you too much change. 
• 1999:  Showcase Cinemas Huber Heights.  
• Because you’re really into boxing now. 
• 2011:  Proof that you’re as strong as I’ve always thought.  
• Because when I was in elementary school, you were the mom who made sure the kids who couldn’t afford glue sticks and markers had all the supplies they needed. 
• 2000:  We didn’t have that much money to spare but Michael and Brandon had even less. 
• Because when I was in 8th grade and wore fishnets and combat boots to school, you were proud of me for being my own person, even though the 11th graders called me a skank.  
• 2004:  You said the Ghostbuster T-shirt looked sharp with the boots. 
• Because you had the strength and education to save us from a situation that could have ruined our lives. 
• 1996:  We ran from his addiction. 

 I love you Mom/Dad.  You're my best friend. [And I'm not just saying that because you buy me margaritas.]

Oh, and you too.

Every night before bed I make a gratitude list and there are items that are permanently at the top.  [My mom, my brother, grandma, Bob, Mr. Anderson]  People come first.  I'm so unbelievably gracious for the friends I have and the love, laughter and support they are responsible for. 

Subsequently, my thankfulness extends to the opportunities that make me better. 

I am grateful for:
the Lutheran university that currently employs me.
said university's close proximity to Chicago.
the colorful and brilliant individuals who populate aforementioned university.
the growth this experience is cultivating.
Guinness
my solar powered flashlight.

If your eyes are dancing with these words, I hope you don't have to delve too deep to find your gratitude.  Try to keep it close and pull it out often.  It is important and humbling to say thank you, even if you don't know who you're saying it too. 

Centennial

This is my 100th post!  I can only hope that I get to live as many years, love as many people, and see as many sunrises.

Continuing at this rate means my bicentennial post won’t appear until 2014 (I’m obviously a prolific blogger).  Because my blogging behavior can be considered sporadic and trivial I figured my 100th post should mean something, that it should celebrate the most important thing I’ve ever had to say. 

I’m still sorting out what I want to say to this world I don’t understand, so it’s the thing I know to be true.

Don't Worry,

I'm a professional rescuer and I know what to do.  

If you're reading this, I'll probably save your life someday.  

(Unless you're an infant, in which case I may accidentally break your neck while doing rescue breathing and I'm real sorry about that.)

Bedtime for Bedbugs.

She goes home to a place where the walls don’t remember her. If they could talk they wouldn’t. They’ve got no stories to tell. Sipping water out of wine glasses in the wee hours of the morning to avoid the rising sun. She wants to read words. To breathe them, devour them, to chase them with a shot of who cares anymore. She wants her words to burn on the way down. Not bible thin pages but your Rosetta stone. To understand. The mingling fortune cookie wisdom and postmodern reconstruction gasp for breath in her globally warmed mind. Sometimes we talk about religion. Sometimes we’re soggy like newspaper caught in the rain.

Fulfillment

At school I’m surrounded by people who share my beliefs, support my passions, and encourage me to continue growing.  At home, I’m forced to defend those beliefs.  It’s frustrating to not be understood, to have to explain myself, and to be around those whose point-of-view will never converge with mine. 

However, the life I’m preparing myself for is one of advocacy, of being a voice for the voiceless.  What could be better preparation than practice? And here, it seems, I’ve met my most worthy opponents.  Sturdy brick walls who refuse to budge. These are the opinions I’ve always been guided by, the people I’ve aimed to please.  If I can’t speak up to them, if I can’t bear to hear them argue that there are more important things to worry about than the rights of my students, then what am I doing?

When I decided to devote all my energy and my college experience to minority students and English learners, I knew that I was entering a battle.  I was making myself a part of a system that doesn’t have room or time for these students.  I was signing up to be a quasi warrior, armed with my unjaded ideals, my heart of hope, and my unfaltering determination. 

I know some think I’m still childish and that my hopes are unrealistic, but I will always see students where you want me to see dollar signs and they come first.  I am not naïve enough to believe that I can change the world, but I’m confident enough to believe that I will change my students.  I will be their advocate, their voice when they need it, and most importantly their teacher.  The knowledge I will give them will enable them to take on this unforgiving world with the confidence to speak and the knowledge to succeed.

W.E.W.W.A

In case you are unfamiliar with this catchy acronym, it stands for Why-Easter-Weekend-Was-Awesome.

1.  Friday, Friday, Friday I had dinner with my mom!! And I learned that I have a mountain, which probably means I have pet bears. Yay bears! Yay dinner with Mom!

I'm clearly known for my photography expertise.

2.  Saturday my very dear England friend Lindsey visited!

3. Travis played Boggle with me in my car while we waited to see Hanna! (G.A.M....that stands for God-awful movie)

I won.

uh...HAHA.

OOPS!

So stonner is spelled stoner but, I mean, both of them are not in the Microsoft Word dictionary and it's not like the stoners minded the extra 'n' and it's not like I get paid to spell things right, and I mean phonetically, um, their like both the same and geeze, ya know?

4/20

In the last few minutes of this waning evening I think about how today takes a minute to chill and celebrate stonners everywhere while stonners everywhere take a minute to celebrate getting stonned.  Since I'm a just-say-No kind of gal, I decided to celebrated today by really honning in a picking my favorite stonner flick. 
...
....
.......
...........
So after much mulling, it turns out that I don't really like stonner movies.
But luckily for the sake of supporting a national holiday I was able to dig to the very far reaches of my brain to remember a movie that poked my funny bone and carved out a place in my heart for all the pot heads in the world.

AND THAT MOVIE IS...
Dude where's my Car
Pineapple Express
THE BIG LEBOWSKI

Aren't' these just beautiful men?

The Dude: Also, my rug was stolen.
Younger Cop: The rug was in the car?
The Dude: No. It was here.
Younger Cop: [eager] Oh, separate incidents.
Maude Lebowski: [on answering machine] Jeffrey, this is Maude Lebowski. I need to see you. I'm the one who took your rug.
Younger Cop: Well. I guess we can close the file on that one.

**I think we should honor the stonners of this country by adding the word "stonner" to the Microstoft Word dictionary so it doesn't have the negative connotation of an angry red line attached to it. 

A gorgeous No.

Today while slaving away (re: staring at) my incomplete portfolio, I decided to do something I never ever do.  And that thing is turning on my TV.  Because this happens so infrequently, I don't know the channels or what's where so it's a little overwhelming (but not as overwhelming as an incomplete portfolio).  But my remote took me to TLC where I spent a solid 13 minutes watching women cry in wedding dresses that for some reason or another weren't good enough.  It mostly involved the necklines.  Necklines apparently will make or break a wedding.

This made me cringe, think, and formulate this list:

Things I will not do:

•     Spend more on a dress I only wear for one day than I do on a pair of jeans or sneakers.
•     Get confused about which is more important, a wedding or a marriage.
•     Yell at people who are only doing their job.
•     Believe that my wedding day will actually be the best day of my life.
•     Ever watch TLC again.

This isn't really a crossroads, they're just tring to trick you.

This is my homework lives.

I can proof read it one more time.  It wouldn’t take more than twenty painful minutes of agony and sheer loathing.  I should just look at the words to make sure they are at least grammatically correct; I don’t have to pay attention to what it actually says.

Instead I’ve decided to have a love affair with T.S. Eliot.  Who knew he was so cool? Not this girl. He and I are going to climb mountains and we will know the evenings, mornings, afternoons.  We have measured out our lives with coffee spoons.

He, along with everything else in existence, is infinitely more interesting than my standards analysis blah blah blah.

"There will be time, there will be time
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of toast and tea."

This show

is my comfort blanket. 

and right now I'm reading:      

Both are fantastic.

And even better when enjoyed simultaneously.

Egypt, I'm proud of you.

 

You're journey has been incredible to witness.  

Smells like home.

 I miss writing.  I miss feeling like I'm good at writing. I miss feeling like I know how to write.  Writing is not a talent.  It is not the love child of inspiration.  Writing is a skill to be honed.  It is hard work.  All the best writing comes from a labor of love.  I miss having  a reason to write, an audience. 

Snowpacolypse

I can't believe:

• it happened.
• it's over.
• we survived.
• classes weren't cancled.  
• I met a squirrel. 
• those days were some of the sunniest I have ever seen. 

Dear Christmas.

I'd like a re-do.  I think it's the least you could do.