Sometimes it's all about finding meaning in the simplest, seemingly meaningless moments.
==============================================
Last night I was at my friend Emily's father's house for Sunday dinner. The food was wonderful, her family was wonderful (as always), and I got to spend some quality time with her little 13 month old nephew, Jackson (which is sometimes the most wonderful, who doesn't love a precious little kid?).
He often wanders off to do his own thing, to see what all is going on with everyone. He's independent and definitely marches to his own beat, seems like he's in his own little world half the time. He walks quite well, almost stumbles sometimes (who doesn't?), but is a resilient little one. His great grandmother had made some comment to someone else and he was standing so close by her that when he went to look up to follow the voice, he craned his neck back too far to look up at her face and fell backward.
His little, not completely stable, frame toppled over because he was looking up so high. He shrugged it off and kept on his little adventure around the house jingling the red Christmas bell.
I took a lesson from watching him stumble while trying to look up, and that's what it's all about. We are constantly looking down or at eye level -- seeing everything as it is and not moving toward what it could be. It's easy to do. To not face things, to hide your face from the potential positives and when we keep looking down or simply looking straight on into what we have, what we are and where we are, life is at a standstill.
Looking up, it takes guts and it takes pushing ourselves to search for the things we're after-- just like he was searching for where that voice came from. And sometimes, like little Jackson did, we'll stumble and topple over. And maybe we'll feel embarrassed and maybe we'll cry over it and maybe it'll even be seemingly impossible to bounce back from-- but it is possible, it is always possible. It's a choice we have to consciously make. What's the point in anything if we're at such a standstill that we can't even look up because we're too scared to move from where we are?
If Jackson, at 13 months old, can literally look up without the fear of toppling over, then who's to say that any of us should be afraid? That little boy's innate courage (subconscious at best) was such a lesson to me of reaching.
Add another notch to my faith in moving forward in life -- in all aspects -- with unfailing confidence.
Monday, December 03, 2007
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Dear Lindsay 5 years from now...
Note to self: you love the name Emery for a girl. It stems from the combination of Sherry and Emily. Go ahead, love it. Not more than Kate, but love it. It's up there.
Jack for your first boy is key. It's strong, bold, proud, rugged, fierce, kind.
Jack for your first boy is key. It's strong, bold, proud, rugged, fierce, kind.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
meredith moments in life.
"sometimes it takes that-- sometimes it takes the final straws and rock bottoms of life to really realize what damages us and what we need to break free from. we all hit that bottom at some point. rock bottom is a different depth for every person, but when we hit it-- we know it. and some people just fall deeper into nothing and some people decide its time to climb back out-- we're climbers. me and you, we're climbers. you're so much bigger than this. and i'm grateful that you're seeing that."
(to melissa 10/23/07)
(to melissa 10/23/07)
Thursday, October 18, 2007
slap in the face/note to self
"In those crucial moments of pivotal personal history [we must] submit ourselves to God even when all our hopes and fears may tempt us otherwise. We must be willing to place all that we have — not just our possessions…but also our ambition and pride and stubbornness and vanity — on the altar of God, kneel there in silent submission, and willingly walk away." -- Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
Friday, August 31, 2007
extremely loud & incredibly close
"That would be so weird, except that the place in the hospital where babies are born would sound like a crystal chandelier in a houseboat, because the babies wouldn't have time to match up their heartbeats yet. And at the finish line at the end of the New York City Marathon it would sound like war." (1)
"Even though it was incredibly sad day, she looked so, so beautiful. I kept trying to figure out a way to tell her that, but all of the ways I thought were weird and wrong. She was wearing the bracelet that I made for her, and that made me feel like one hundred dollars." (7)
"Can't you even tell me if I'm on the right track?" Buckminster purred, and Dad shrugged his shoulders. "But if you don't tell me anything, how can I ever be right?" He circled something in an article and said, "Another way of looking at it would be, how could you ever be wrong?" (9)
"Being with him made my brain quiet. I didn't have to invent anything." pg. 12
"I watched the fireflies of his thoughts orbit his head." (13)
"I've thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it." pg. (17)
"You look upset, is anything wrong?" I wanted to say, "Of course," I wanted to ask, "Is anything right?" I wanted to pull the thread, unravel the scarf of my silence and start again from the beginning, but instead I said, "I." (17)
"... she cried and cried and cried, there weren't any napkins nearby, so I ripped the page from my book -- I don't speak. I'm sorry -- and used it to dry her cheeks, my explanation and apology ran down her face like mascara..." (31)
"I asked my schoolmate Mary to write a letter to me. She was funny and full of life. She liked to run around her empty house without any clothes on, even once she was too old for that. Nothing embarrassed her. I admired that so much, because everything embarrassed me, and that hurt me. She loved to jump on her bed. She jumped on her bed for so many years that one afternoon, while I watched her jump, the seams burst. Feathers filled the room. Our laughter kept the feathers in the air. I thought about birds. Could they fly if there wasn't someone, somewhere laughing?" (78)
"I have no need for the past, I thought..." (78)
"Their length could not be measured in years, just as an ocean could not explain the distance we had traveled, just as the dead can never be counted." (81)
"I wanted to run away from him, and I wanted to go to him.
I went to him." (82)
"It was the first time I had ever made love. I wondered if he knew that. It felt like crying." (84)
"I told her, "Humans are the only animal that blushes, laughs, has religion, wages war, and kisses with lips. So in a way, the more you kiss with lips, the more human you are."" (99)
"I like to see people reunited, maybe that's a silly thing, but what can I say, I like to see people run to each other, I like the kissing and the crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can't tell fast enough, the ears that aren't big enough, the eyes that can't take in all of the change, I like the hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone, I sit on the side with a coffee and write in my day book..." (109)
""There's nothing wrong with not understanding yourself," she saw through the shell of me into the center of me." (113)
"I hated myself for going. Why couldn't I be the kind of person who stays?" (114)
"I further convinced myself that she had thought badly of me, or worse, she hadn't thought of me at all." (116)
"We stopped laughing, I took the world into me, rearranged it, and sent it back out as a question: "Do you like me?"" (117)
"... she wants to know if I love her, that's all anyone wants from anyone else, not love itself but the knowledge that love is there, like new batteries in the flashlight in the emergency kit in the hall closet..." (130)
"... I was missing her already, I wasn't having second thoughts, but I was having thoughts..." (132)
"I felt, that night, on stage, under that skull, incredibly close to everything in the universe, but also extremely alone. I wondered, for the first time in my life, if life was worth all the work it took to live. What exactly made it worth it? What's so horrible about being dead forever, and not feeling anything, and not even dreaming? What's so great about feeling and dreaming?" (145)
""There are more places you haven't heard of than you've heard of!" I loved that." pg. (154)
"It's not a horrible world," he told me, putting a Cambodian mask on his face, "but it's filled with a lot of horrible people!"" (156)
"What if the water that came out of the shower was treated with a chemical that responded to the combination of things, like your heartbeat, and your body temperature, and your brain waves, so that your skin changed color according to your mood? If you were extremely excited your skin would turn green, and if you were angry you'd turn red, and obviously, is you felt like shiitake you'd turn brown, and if you were blue you'd turn blue.
Everyone could know what everyone else felt, and we could be more careful with each other, because you'd never want to tell a person whose skin was purple that you're angry at her for being late, just like you would want to pat a pink person on the back and tell him, "Congratulations!"" (163)
"I missed you even when I was with you. That's been my problem. I miss what I already have, and I surrounded myself with things that are missing." (174)
"I never confused what I had with what I was." (174)
"The water was gray with all of his days." (180)
"Not worn out, but worn through. Like one of those wives who wakes up one morning and says I can't bake any more bread." (180)
"You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness." (180)
"Touching him was always so important to me. It was something I lived for. I could never explain why. Little, nothing touches. My fingers against his shoulder. The outside of our thighs touching as we squeezed together on the bus. I couldn't explain it, but I needed it. Sometimes I imagined stitching all of our little touches together. How many thousands of fingers brushing against each other does it to make love." (181)
"I regret that it takes a life to learn how to live, Oskar. Because if I were able to live my life again, I would do things differently." (184)
"It's the tragedy of loving, you can't love anything more than something you miss." (208)
""The boy asked the girl to say 'I love you' into her can, giving her no further explanation.
"And she didn't ask for any, or say "That's silly," or 'We're too young for love,' or even suggest that she was saying 'I love you' because he asked her to. Instead she said 'I love you.' The words traveled the yo-yo, the doll, the diary, the necklace, the quilt, the clothesline, the birthday present, the harp, the tea bag, the tennis racket, the hem of the skirt he one day would have pulled from her body... The boy covered his can with a lid, removed it from the string, and put her love for him on a shelf in his closet. Of course, he never could open the can, because then he would lose its contents. It was enough just to know it was there."" (220)
""...The gavels of frozen judges are frozen between guilt and innocence. On the ground are the crystals of the frozen first breaths of babies, and those of the last gasps of the dying. On a frozen shelf, in a closet frozen shut, is a can with a voice in it."" (223)
"Time was passing like a hand waving from a train that I wanted to be on." pg. 224
"We all rode in the limousine together. I could not stop touching you. I could not touch you enough. I needed more hands." (232)
"I looked at everyone and wondered where they came, and who they missed, and what they were sorry for." (247)
"She said, "I know about this building because I love this building." That gave me heavy boots, because it reminded me of the lock that I still hadn't found, and how until I found it, I didn't love Dad enough. "What is it about this building?" Mr Black asked. She said, "If I had an answer, it wouldn't really be love, would it?" (251)
"I broke my life down into letters, for love I pressed "5, 6, 8, 3," for death, "3, 3, 2, 8, 4,"when the suffering is subtracted from the joy, what remains? What, I wondered, is the sum of my life?" (269)
"... it broke my heart into more pieces than my heart was made of, why can't people say what they mean at the time?" (279)
"... I want an infinitely long blank book and the rest of time..." (279)
"Poor child, telling everything to a stranger, I wanted to build walls around him, I wanted to separate inside from outside, I wanted to give him an infinitely long blank book and the rest of time..." (280)
"I wanted to touch him, to tell him that even if everyone left everyone, I would never leave him, he talked and talked, his words fell through him, trying to find the floor of his sadness..." (280)
"Or I would have told him about how Dad called when I was home. But I didn't know, just like I didn't know it was the last time Dad would ever tuck me in, because you never know." (286)
"I liked watching the baby make fists. I wondered if he could have thoughts, or if he was more like a nonhuman animal." (287)
""I wanted to hurt him." "Why?" "Because he had hurt me." "Why?" "Because people hurt each other. That's what people do." "It's not what I do." "I know."" (290)
"I wonder if your posters and my mom's posters were ever close to each other." (299)
"In my dream, painters separated green into yellow and blue.
Brown into the rainbow.
Children pulled color from coloring books with crayons, and mothers who had lost children mended their black clothing with scissors. I think about all of the things I've done, Oskar. And all of the things I didn't do. The mistakes I've made are dead to me. But I can't take back the things I never did." (309)
"I wanted to be with him.
Or anyone.
I don't know if I've ever loved your grandfather.
But I've loved not being alone.
I got very close to him.
I wanted to shout myself into his ear.
I touched his shoulder.
He lowered his head." (309)
"And how can you say I love you to someone you love?
I rolled onto my side and fell asleep next to her.
Here is the point of everything I have been trying to tell you, Oskar.
It's always necessary.
I love you,
Grandma" (314)
"It was so dark that it was even hard to hear." (319)
"I wondered how many things had died since the first thing was born. A trillion? A googolplex?" (319)
""Life is scarier than death."" (322)
"I cried some more. I wanted to tell her all of the lies that I'd told her. And then I wanted her to tell me that it was OK, because sometimes you have to do something bad to do something good." (324)
"I felt in the space between the bed and the wall, and found Stuff That Happened To Me. It was completely full. I was going to have to start a new volume soon. I read that it was the paper that kept the towers burning. All of those notepads, and Xeroxes, and printed e-mails, and photographs of kids, and books, and dollar bills in wallets, and documents in files... all of them were fuel. Maybe if we lived in a paperless society, which lots of scientists say we'll probably live in one day soon, Dad would still be alive. Maybe I shouldn't start a new volume." (325)
"Even though it was incredibly sad day, she looked so, so beautiful. I kept trying to figure out a way to tell her that, but all of the ways I thought were weird and wrong. She was wearing the bracelet that I made for her, and that made me feel like one hundred dollars." (7)
"Can't you even tell me if I'm on the right track?" Buckminster purred, and Dad shrugged his shoulders. "But if you don't tell me anything, how can I ever be right?" He circled something in an article and said, "Another way of looking at it would be, how could you ever be wrong?" (9)
"Being with him made my brain quiet. I didn't have to invent anything." pg. 12
"I watched the fireflies of his thoughts orbit his head." (13)
"I've thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it." pg. (17)
"You look upset, is anything wrong?" I wanted to say, "Of course," I wanted to ask, "Is anything right?" I wanted to pull the thread, unravel the scarf of my silence and start again from the beginning, but instead I said, "I." (17)
"... she cried and cried and cried, there weren't any napkins nearby, so I ripped the page from my book -- I don't speak. I'm sorry -- and used it to dry her cheeks, my explanation and apology ran down her face like mascara..." (31)
"I asked my schoolmate Mary to write a letter to me. She was funny and full of life. She liked to run around her empty house without any clothes on, even once she was too old for that. Nothing embarrassed her. I admired that so much, because everything embarrassed me, and that hurt me. She loved to jump on her bed. She jumped on her bed for so many years that one afternoon, while I watched her jump, the seams burst. Feathers filled the room. Our laughter kept the feathers in the air. I thought about birds. Could they fly if there wasn't someone, somewhere laughing?" (78)
"I have no need for the past, I thought..." (78)
"Their length could not be measured in years, just as an ocean could not explain the distance we had traveled, just as the dead can never be counted." (81)
"I wanted to run away from him, and I wanted to go to him.
I went to him." (82)
"It was the first time I had ever made love. I wondered if he knew that. It felt like crying." (84)
"I told her, "Humans are the only animal that blushes, laughs, has religion, wages war, and kisses with lips. So in a way, the more you kiss with lips, the more human you are."" (99)
"I like to see people reunited, maybe that's a silly thing, but what can I say, I like to see people run to each other, I like the kissing and the crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can't tell fast enough, the ears that aren't big enough, the eyes that can't take in all of the change, I like the hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone, I sit on the side with a coffee and write in my day book..." (109)
""There's nothing wrong with not understanding yourself," she saw through the shell of me into the center of me." (113)
"I hated myself for going. Why couldn't I be the kind of person who stays?" (114)
"I further convinced myself that she had thought badly of me, or worse, she hadn't thought of me at all." (116)
"We stopped laughing, I took the world into me, rearranged it, and sent it back out as a question: "Do you like me?"" (117)
"... she wants to know if I love her, that's all anyone wants from anyone else, not love itself but the knowledge that love is there, like new batteries in the flashlight in the emergency kit in the hall closet..." (130)
"... I was missing her already, I wasn't having second thoughts, but I was having thoughts..." (132)
"I felt, that night, on stage, under that skull, incredibly close to everything in the universe, but also extremely alone. I wondered, for the first time in my life, if life was worth all the work it took to live. What exactly made it worth it? What's so horrible about being dead forever, and not feeling anything, and not even dreaming? What's so great about feeling and dreaming?" (145)
""There are more places you haven't heard of than you've heard of!" I loved that." pg. (154)
"It's not a horrible world," he told me, putting a Cambodian mask on his face, "but it's filled with a lot of horrible people!"" (156)
"What if the water that came out of the shower was treated with a chemical that responded to the combination of things, like your heartbeat, and your body temperature, and your brain waves, so that your skin changed color according to your mood? If you were extremely excited your skin would turn green, and if you were angry you'd turn red, and obviously, is you felt like shiitake you'd turn brown, and if you were blue you'd turn blue.
Everyone could know what everyone else felt, and we could be more careful with each other, because you'd never want to tell a person whose skin was purple that you're angry at her for being late, just like you would want to pat a pink person on the back and tell him, "Congratulations!"" (163)
"I missed you even when I was with you. That's been my problem. I miss what I already have, and I surrounded myself with things that are missing." (174)
"I never confused what I had with what I was." (174)
"The water was gray with all of his days." (180)
"Not worn out, but worn through. Like one of those wives who wakes up one morning and says I can't bake any more bread." (180)
"You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness." (180)
"Touching him was always so important to me. It was something I lived for. I could never explain why. Little, nothing touches. My fingers against his shoulder. The outside of our thighs touching as we squeezed together on the bus. I couldn't explain it, but I needed it. Sometimes I imagined stitching all of our little touches together. How many thousands of fingers brushing against each other does it to make love." (181)
"I regret that it takes a life to learn how to live, Oskar. Because if I were able to live my life again, I would do things differently." (184)
"It's the tragedy of loving, you can't love anything more than something you miss." (208)
""The boy asked the girl to say 'I love you' into her can, giving her no further explanation.
"And she didn't ask for any, or say "That's silly," or 'We're too young for love,' or even suggest that she was saying 'I love you' because he asked her to. Instead she said 'I love you.' The words traveled the yo-yo, the doll, the diary, the necklace, the quilt, the clothesline, the birthday present, the harp, the tea bag, the tennis racket, the hem of the skirt he one day would have pulled from her body... The boy covered his can with a lid, removed it from the string, and put her love for him on a shelf in his closet. Of course, he never could open the can, because then he would lose its contents. It was enough just to know it was there."" (220)
""...The gavels of frozen judges are frozen between guilt and innocence. On the ground are the crystals of the frozen first breaths of babies, and those of the last gasps of the dying. On a frozen shelf, in a closet frozen shut, is a can with a voice in it."" (223)
"Time was passing like a hand waving from a train that I wanted to be on." pg. 224
"We all rode in the limousine together. I could not stop touching you. I could not touch you enough. I needed more hands." (232)
"I looked at everyone and wondered where they came, and who they missed, and what they were sorry for." (247)
"She said, "I know about this building because I love this building." That gave me heavy boots, because it reminded me of the lock that I still hadn't found, and how until I found it, I didn't love Dad enough. "What is it about this building?" Mr Black asked. She said, "If I had an answer, it wouldn't really be love, would it?" (251)
"I broke my life down into letters, for love I pressed "5, 6, 8, 3," for death, "3, 3, 2, 8, 4,"when the suffering is subtracted from the joy, what remains? What, I wondered, is the sum of my life?" (269)
"... it broke my heart into more pieces than my heart was made of, why can't people say what they mean at the time?" (279)
"... I want an infinitely long blank book and the rest of time..." (279)
"Poor child, telling everything to a stranger, I wanted to build walls around him, I wanted to separate inside from outside, I wanted to give him an infinitely long blank book and the rest of time..." (280)
"I wanted to touch him, to tell him that even if everyone left everyone, I would never leave him, he talked and talked, his words fell through him, trying to find the floor of his sadness..." (280)
"Or I would have told him about how Dad called when I was home. But I didn't know, just like I didn't know it was the last time Dad would ever tuck me in, because you never know." (286)
"I liked watching the baby make fists. I wondered if he could have thoughts, or if he was more like a nonhuman animal." (287)
""I wanted to hurt him." "Why?" "Because he had hurt me." "Why?" "Because people hurt each other. That's what people do." "It's not what I do." "I know."" (290)
"I wonder if your posters and my mom's posters were ever close to each other." (299)
"In my dream, painters separated green into yellow and blue.
Brown into the rainbow.
Children pulled color from coloring books with crayons, and mothers who had lost children mended their black clothing with scissors. I think about all of the things I've done, Oskar. And all of the things I didn't do. The mistakes I've made are dead to me. But I can't take back the things I never did." (309)
"I wanted to be with him.
Or anyone.
I don't know if I've ever loved your grandfather.
But I've loved not being alone.
I got very close to him.
I wanted to shout myself into his ear.
I touched his shoulder.
He lowered his head." (309)
"And how can you say I love you to someone you love?
I rolled onto my side and fell asleep next to her.
Here is the point of everything I have been trying to tell you, Oskar.
It's always necessary.
I love you,
Grandma" (314)
"It was so dark that it was even hard to hear." (319)
"I wondered how many things had died since the first thing was born. A trillion? A googolplex?" (319)
""Life is scarier than death."" (322)
"I cried some more. I wanted to tell her all of the lies that I'd told her. And then I wanted her to tell me that it was OK, because sometimes you have to do something bad to do something good." (324)
"I felt in the space between the bed and the wall, and found Stuff That Happened To Me. It was completely full. I was going to have to start a new volume soon. I read that it was the paper that kept the towers burning. All of those notepads, and Xeroxes, and printed e-mails, and photographs of kids, and books, and dollar bills in wallets, and documents in files... all of them were fuel. Maybe if we lived in a paperless society, which lots of scientists say we'll probably live in one day soon, Dad would still be alive. Maybe I shouldn't start a new volume." (325)
Monday, February 19, 2007
i believe...
i believe that making a difference is possible and i believe we all have it in us.
i believe that one person can make a difference because even if you're making the difference in the life of "only" one person, that person will pass on that part of his or her life to everyone he or she meets, all the friends he or she touches and all the family that will progress from that point forward.
i believe in a thing called love (just listen to the rhythm of my heart.... seriously).
i believe that i was put on this earth with purpose and reason and i'll do anything i have to do, regardless of whether i WANT to or whether i know it's something i HAVE to do, to make sure i live up to that purpose and fulfill my potential.
i believe that raising and teaching a child is the most valuable legacy i can ever leave and i plan on doing that. when it's right. i believe that's what i was made for, and call me crazy, but what greater power can you have than creating life? what greater reward can you receive than knowing you helped to creat this tiny little person that will go on to live a life that you helped mold for them? what greater love can come from a child?... or innocence?... or wonder? what could ever be more important or more rewarding?
i believe that healing is possible, that redemption is just and that we have the ability to grow from the things in our life that try to weigh us down. i want to be as tall as a tree. always ten feet tall.
i believe that the burdens in our lives are nothing but just that -- burdens -- and i don't believe that taking your life, the most precious gift you've ever been given, is brave. i believe that facing life is brave, that coming face to face with the demons that haunt you is brave. i believe that learning and moving on is brave. i believe in being brave.
i believe that we're in the place we are at the time we are for a reason and that we're never put somewhere that we'll be challenged too much... i believe we're never given more than we can handle.
i believe that i am heaven sent (don't you dare forget).
i believe that there's a life after this one and that i will be blessed for the live i've led, for the choices i have made and will make, and i believe that i'll have to face to the consequences of the problems i may not have resolved. i know that's fair.
i believe in you (even if no one understands, i believe in you).
i believe that surface relationships are the reason there is so much hatred in this world and i believe that if we really got down to it, we all just really want the same thing and have the same goals (okay, there are some exceptions) and that peace is possible. i'm not a dreamer and i'm not naive and i'm not uneducated on the world... i honestly believe that.
i believe that taking time out of your own day to make someone else's better, makes us better.
i believe in a plan of happiness.
i believe that we chose a family that fits us, regardless of the family dynamic, and that blood is thicker than water.
i believe that my sister will make the right decisions one day.
i believe that you might not be a perfect hand, but i don't hit on 19... and if you don't get that, then you haven't listened to enough john mayer in your life and you better start.
i believe that i have the most perfect roommate for me right now and that we were brought together because we needed each other at this point, to grow and learn and teach each other in such different ways than we ever imagined.
i believe that families can be together forever.
i believe that every decision we make in life is a choice and that we have no one to blame but ourselves (there are exceptions to this, too) and in taking responsibility for our own actions and living up to the consequences and benefits that follow those decision (this was a choice, this was never a mistake).
i believe in God.
i believe that modern medicine is just miracles in the form of machines and if we really took the time to look around at everything and realize that it's not just science, that it's a gift, the world would be a lot more beautiful.
i believe that i'm never alone.
i believe that writing down the events of our lives, much like history books, will help us to go and look back when we need direction in our lives so that we don't make the same mistakes again... and sometimes we repeat the past, but at least -- hopefully -- we will be better for it.
i believe that my family is the single greatest group of people on this earth and that i can't wait to be given the opportunity to create my own to further branch out that greatness.
i believe that taking a photo is not creating a memory, but that it is capturing life.
i believe in prayer and the power that it has to comfort and to guide and direct our lives.
i believe that happiness is a choice we make everyday of our lives and i choose happiness.
i believe in the faith that people say they have in me and i believed you when you said i deserve more... i'll find more, i know i will.
i believe that my mother is the single most brilliant, generous, infectious, caring, giving, stubborn, intelligent, beautiful, funny, random, mother there ever could be... and i bet you think about your mom too... but when people tell me i'm just like my mom, i take it as the greatest compliment.
i believe that he really loved me.
i believe that prayers are answered in the form of friends, words, phone calls, myspace messages, heat, that perfect song that you hear exactly when you need it, and french vanilla hot chocolate.
i believe a book or song or band can change your life.
i believe that there is so much more than here and so much more than now and that so much more will lead me to the places i'm going and that i'll find the things i need along the way.
i believe in myself.
i believe that one person can make a difference because even if you're making the difference in the life of "only" one person, that person will pass on that part of his or her life to everyone he or she meets, all the friends he or she touches and all the family that will progress from that point forward.
i believe in a thing called love (just listen to the rhythm of my heart.... seriously).
i believe that i was put on this earth with purpose and reason and i'll do anything i have to do, regardless of whether i WANT to or whether i know it's something i HAVE to do, to make sure i live up to that purpose and fulfill my potential.
i believe that raising and teaching a child is the most valuable legacy i can ever leave and i plan on doing that. when it's right. i believe that's what i was made for, and call me crazy, but what greater power can you have than creating life? what greater reward can you receive than knowing you helped to creat this tiny little person that will go on to live a life that you helped mold for them? what greater love can come from a child?... or innocence?... or wonder? what could ever be more important or more rewarding?
i believe that healing is possible, that redemption is just and that we have the ability to grow from the things in our life that try to weigh us down. i want to be as tall as a tree. always ten feet tall.
i believe that the burdens in our lives are nothing but just that -- burdens -- and i don't believe that taking your life, the most precious gift you've ever been given, is brave. i believe that facing life is brave, that coming face to face with the demons that haunt you is brave. i believe that learning and moving on is brave. i believe in being brave.
i believe that we're in the place we are at the time we are for a reason and that we're never put somewhere that we'll be challenged too much... i believe we're never given more than we can handle.
i believe that i am heaven sent (don't you dare forget).
i believe that there's a life after this one and that i will be blessed for the live i've led, for the choices i have made and will make, and i believe that i'll have to face to the consequences of the problems i may not have resolved. i know that's fair.
i believe in you (even if no one understands, i believe in you).
i believe that surface relationships are the reason there is so much hatred in this world and i believe that if we really got down to it, we all just really want the same thing and have the same goals (okay, there are some exceptions) and that peace is possible. i'm not a dreamer and i'm not naive and i'm not uneducated on the world... i honestly believe that.
i believe that taking time out of your own day to make someone else's better, makes us better.
i believe in a plan of happiness.
i believe that we chose a family that fits us, regardless of the family dynamic, and that blood is thicker than water.
i believe that my sister will make the right decisions one day.
i believe that you might not be a perfect hand, but i don't hit on 19... and if you don't get that, then you haven't listened to enough john mayer in your life and you better start.
i believe that i have the most perfect roommate for me right now and that we were brought together because we needed each other at this point, to grow and learn and teach each other in such different ways than we ever imagined.
i believe that families can be together forever.
i believe that every decision we make in life is a choice and that we have no one to blame but ourselves (there are exceptions to this, too) and in taking responsibility for our own actions and living up to the consequences and benefits that follow those decision (this was a choice, this was never a mistake).
i believe in God.
i believe that modern medicine is just miracles in the form of machines and if we really took the time to look around at everything and realize that it's not just science, that it's a gift, the world would be a lot more beautiful.
i believe that i'm never alone.
i believe that writing down the events of our lives, much like history books, will help us to go and look back when we need direction in our lives so that we don't make the same mistakes again... and sometimes we repeat the past, but at least -- hopefully -- we will be better for it.
i believe that my family is the single greatest group of people on this earth and that i can't wait to be given the opportunity to create my own to further branch out that greatness.
i believe that taking a photo is not creating a memory, but that it is capturing life.
i believe in prayer and the power that it has to comfort and to guide and direct our lives.
i believe that happiness is a choice we make everyday of our lives and i choose happiness.
i believe in the faith that people say they have in me and i believed you when you said i deserve more... i'll find more, i know i will.
i believe that my mother is the single most brilliant, generous, infectious, caring, giving, stubborn, intelligent, beautiful, funny, random, mother there ever could be... and i bet you think about your mom too... but when people tell me i'm just like my mom, i take it as the greatest compliment.
i believe that he really loved me.
i believe that prayers are answered in the form of friends, words, phone calls, myspace messages, heat, that perfect song that you hear exactly when you need it, and french vanilla hot chocolate.
i believe a book or song or band can change your life.
i believe that there is so much more than here and so much more than now and that so much more will lead me to the places i'm going and that i'll find the things i need along the way.
i believe in myself.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
love is a mix tape
"Tonight, I feel like my whole body is made out of memories. I'm a mix tape, a cassette that's been rewound so many times you can hear the fingerprints smudged on the tape." (12)
"It's a fundamental human need to pass music around, and however the technology evolves, the music keeps moving." (24)
"Every mix tape tells a story. Put them together, and t hey add up to the story of your life." (26)
"... she was a real people pleaser. She worried way too much what people thought of her, wore her heart on her sleeve, expected too much from people, and got hurt too easily. She kept other people's secrets like a champ, but told her own too fast. She expected the world not to cheat her and was always surprised when it did." (67)
"We were just a couple of fallen angels, rolling the dice of our lives." (80)
"What if we just decide not to fall apart? What if we decide not to wait to see what happens, but instead decide what we want to happen and then decide how to make it happen?" (81)
"'I only really want you for your rock and roll'." (94)
"This was the greatest band ever, obviously. And they didn't live twenty years ago, or ten years ago, or five years ago. They were right now. They were ours." (95)
"The new wave girls scams on other people's identities, mixing and matching until she comes up with a style of her own, knowing that nothing belongs to her, that she just gets to wear it until somebody comes along with faster fingers to snatch it away." (137)
"On the way we talked about the road sign BRIDGE FREEZES BEFORE ROAD. I always wondered, If that's a problem, why don't they just build the bridge out of the same stuff they use to build the road? Drema explained that the bridge isn't made out of different material than the road, but that the bridge ice quicker because it's alone, hanging there without the land under it to keep it warm." (147)
"I was surrounded by friends and family who wanted to help, but I was too frozen to admit how much I needed it." (155)
"I had no voice to talk with because she was my whole language." (156)
"You lose a kind of innocence when you experience this type of kindness. You lose your right to be a jaded cynic. You can no longer go back through the looking glass and pretend not to know what you know about kindness. It's a defeat, in a way." (164)
"Kindness is a scarier force than cruelty, that's for sure." (166)
"Human benevolence is totally unfair. We don't live in a kind or generous world, yet we are kind and generous. We know the universe is out to burn us, and it gets us all the way it got Renee, but we don't burn each other, not always. We are kind peole in an unkind world, to paraphrase Wallace Stevens. How do you go back to acting like you don't need it? How do you even the score and walk off a free man? You can't. I found myself forced to let go of all sorts of independence I thought I had, independence I had spent years trying to cultivate. That world wasall gone, and now I was a supplicant, dependent on the mercy of other people's psychic hearts.
I was awed and ruined by this knowledge. Renee knew it all the time; I was learning it these days." (167)
"The way I pictured it, all this grief would be like a winter night when you're standing outside. You'll warm up once you get used to the cold. Except after you've been out there a while, you feel the warmth draining out of you and you realize t he opposite is happening; you're getting colder and colder, as the body heat you brought outside with you seeps out of your skin. Instead of getting used to it, you get weaker the longer you endure it. I was trying so hard to be strong. I knew how to go out, how to stay in, how to get things done, but that was it." (173)
"I didn't want to have these experiences, didn't want to run into living things that reminded me of the past, I would have to hide under a rock-- except that would remind me of the past, too, so I try not to hide. What shocks me is that the present is alive." (217)
"It's a fundamental human need to pass music around, and however the technology evolves, the music keeps moving." (24)
"Every mix tape tells a story. Put them together, and t hey add up to the story of your life." (26)
"... she was a real people pleaser. She worried way too much what people thought of her, wore her heart on her sleeve, expected too much from people, and got hurt too easily. She kept other people's secrets like a champ, but told her own too fast. She expected the world not to cheat her and was always surprised when it did." (67)
"We were just a couple of fallen angels, rolling the dice of our lives." (80)
"What if we just decide not to fall apart? What if we decide not to wait to see what happens, but instead decide what we want to happen and then decide how to make it happen?" (81)
"'I only really want you for your rock and roll'." (94)
"This was the greatest band ever, obviously. And they didn't live twenty years ago, or ten years ago, or five years ago. They were right now. They were ours." (95)
"The new wave girls scams on other people's identities, mixing and matching until she comes up with a style of her own, knowing that nothing belongs to her, that she just gets to wear it until somebody comes along with faster fingers to snatch it away." (137)
"On the way we talked about the road sign BRIDGE FREEZES BEFORE ROAD. I always wondered, If that's a problem, why don't they just build the bridge out of the same stuff they use to build the road? Drema explained that the bridge isn't made out of different material than the road, but that the bridge ice quicker because it's alone, hanging there without the land under it to keep it warm." (147)
"I was surrounded by friends and family who wanted to help, but I was too frozen to admit how much I needed it." (155)
"I had no voice to talk with because she was my whole language." (156)
"You lose a kind of innocence when you experience this type of kindness. You lose your right to be a jaded cynic. You can no longer go back through the looking glass and pretend not to know what you know about kindness. It's a defeat, in a way." (164)
"Kindness is a scarier force than cruelty, that's for sure." (166)
"Human benevolence is totally unfair. We don't live in a kind or generous world, yet we are kind and generous. We know the universe is out to burn us, and it gets us all the way it got Renee, but we don't burn each other, not always. We are kind peole in an unkind world, to paraphrase Wallace Stevens. How do you go back to acting like you don't need it? How do you even the score and walk off a free man? You can't. I found myself forced to let go of all sorts of independence I thought I had, independence I had spent years trying to cultivate. That world wasall gone, and now I was a supplicant, dependent on the mercy of other people's psychic hearts.
I was awed and ruined by this knowledge. Renee knew it all the time; I was learning it these days." (167)
"The way I pictured it, all this grief would be like a winter night when you're standing outside. You'll warm up once you get used to the cold. Except after you've been out there a while, you feel the warmth draining out of you and you realize t he opposite is happening; you're getting colder and colder, as the body heat you brought outside with you seeps out of your skin. Instead of getting used to it, you get weaker the longer you endure it. I was trying so hard to be strong. I knew how to go out, how to stay in, how to get things done, but that was it." (173)
"I didn't want to have these experiences, didn't want to run into living things that reminded me of the past, I would have to hide under a rock-- except that would remind me of the past, too, so I try not to hide. What shocks me is that the present is alive." (217)
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