The past

I often sit and remember the past. The times when all I had to do was wake up, go to school, and come home. When talking on the phone was the most important thing. When my only job was folding clothes (I wasn't allowed to wash them...and didn't even learn how until I went to college.)

My mom always required me to visit my grandparents and aunts and uncles. We never got to eat out, we had to sit around the dinner table together with the TV off most of the time. My room was never clean enough.

In middle school, I started making dinner for my family every night after school. I remember how much fun it was at first, but then how obligated I felt to do it every day, and how that cut into my phone and TV time after school.

Now, I have a job. A "real" job starting in a week. I have graduated college, and am expected to be even more independent than before. I have to pay bills, on time, which isn't easy for me. I have to find a way to eat every day, whether I go out or stay in. I have to make decisions for myself, by myself.

My room is never clean enough.

I long to sit on my grandparents front porch, talking, or watching squirrels.

I wish boyfriends were just the boys you went to the movie with on Friday night, and maybe even sat by. Or the boy who wants to play basketball with you at recess. Now everything is complicated and involves space, freedom, trust, understanding, and commitment.

I wish I could go back in time and tell my younger self to enjoy those care free times while they last. Don't be lazy and sleep all of the time, it's just a bad habit that I still haven't been able to break fully. Arrive somewhere early, another habit that causes me stress today.

I have finally figured out what it is I am searching for. I want those easy times in life to come back. I keep searching for a day, week, or month where I make all of the decisions on what I am going to do, instead of doing what I'm required to do during those times.

I wonder if they ever come? Will I spend my whole life searching for that life?

I hope when I have kids, I can take the time to observe them in their care free lifestyle, and maybe live vicariously through that for a little while.

The writer

I am a writer. I always have been.

I believe writing is both a gift and a talent. A gift because I think some are born to write, and easily excel at writing. Writing is a talent because one must work at it, just as one must work at playing baseball, or doing a back handspring.

I think I was born with the gift of writing, and storytelling, but have recently let my talent slip.

Today, I scheduled an interview. I felt like a fish out of water. I couldn't remember how to formulate questions, and make them understandable and intriguing.

It's strange how I can always think of those tough questions any other time, but while I sat there, having the conversation, I couldn't think of anything to ask.

I know it will all come back to me, and the story will get written. But somehow, I think this day was an eye opener to me. The craft of writing isn't just a gift, it's also a talent that every writer must practice.

Strike one. Flip-flop.

-30-

Christmas

Christmas...really?

Everyone is worried about what presents they are going to buy their nanny or their hairdresser. I'm worried about which parent I will spend Christmas night with.

For someone who always thought she had the perfect family with the perfect holidays and the perfect life, I have realized that I never treated them as perfect when they were here.

Growing up, even up to last Christmas, I have always acted like a spoiled brat who "deserved" the best, and if I didn't get it...look out. Now that I don't have it, I'm devastated.

I guess the saying is correct. You don't know what you've got till it's gone.

It makes me sick to think about all of the times I acted spoiled or selfish during holidays, whether they were Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays, or Easter. I never even knew I was acting that way at the time. I just did it.

Looking back, I wish I could change those memories of me being mad, or upset, or tired so that I could have perfect memories of when my family was perfect. While I still have those memories, unfortunately, I'm the only one in the stories that isn't perfect.

For some reason, I'm always the drama queen. I need all of the attention, good or bad, on me at all times.

My friends say that's still the same. They say I'm over-reacting about this whole thing with my family and I just need to get over it. They say it happens every day, and that my story isn't any different from anyone else's.

Well, it is. And it's okay for me to feel badly, and be sick, and cry. It's okay because that's what I feel. I'm sad. I make myself sick. And I cry.

I regret the holidays from the past. The Christmases where I didn't get exactly what I wanted and I was mad. There's even a picture of me from the third grade where I'm screaming my head off because my mom wanted me to pose with my new baby carriage and outfit I got from Santa. But, it wasn't exactly what I wanted, so I bitched, and complained, and screamed.

I did all of that while my cousin, who just lost her father in a horrible car accident just a week before, stood beside me smiling.

What I horrible person. From the beginning.

I vow to change.

I vow to be different. For my family, for my friends, for my future.

I don't want my kids to remember bad holidays because I can't be pleased.

More than anything, I want to forgive myself. Forgive because it's what I need to do to make the pattern change.

Until that pattern changes, I will cry.

Words

This new blog is dedicated to words.

Words are a part of everyone's lives, daily encounters, and relationships. For me, words are a relationship.

I can't pinpoint the exact moment when words became so important to me, but I know it was at a young age. I remember always writing. One of my punishments growing up was to write sentences over and over again like Bart Simpson does on the chalkboard, only mine were on lined paper. I learned that if I just joined all of the words together, it made it easier, and kind of like a game.

I would have, essentially, one incredibly long word that said something like, "IwillnotthrowmypianobooksonthefloorwhenIcomein,Iwillputthemwheretheygo."

I don't think that went over very well with my mom. I had to re-do a lot of those sentence punishments.

Words are still essential to my life. I based my education on words, and unfortunately, I have let myself become too busy to continue with my passion for words. Or else, I have let that be my excuse, so that I leave my past behind and trek out into the unknown.

After doing some thinking, I've realized that words fit wherever I go, because they are ingrained in my soul. I will always write. SometimesIwillwritelikeachild. And sometimes... I will write romantically, OR WITH EMPHASIS.

But I will always write.