The Year of Me

At this time last year I was just beginning to start my new life. The easy life. The happy one. I had officially left school and told my parents what I did and there was no going back. I was a grad school dropout and I was ok with that. 

Even though I had left school I was still able to see a school therapist but I stopped going just before heading home for Christmas. I was telling her about how my head was still swimming with worry. I was living completely inside myself and I didn't know how to get out. So she told me to start noticing my surroundings. To look at nature and people and buildings. Sounded easy enough. So I left that session and I started looking. The sky was blue. The trees were bare. The wind was cold. I had stepped out of my head and allowed myself to join the world again. 

Even the smallest of flames help you to see the whole picture.

A few months before this I had attended the first Boston Bookfest with my friend and college roommate, Laura. I told her how I had been feeling like I wanted to leave school. We discussed it a little and then the lecture started. When it was finished she turned to me and asked if I had read the book, "Eat, Pray, Love." I told her that I had and she told me that I should do what the author of that book did. Take a year off to take care of myself. To leave behind the bad and find the good. It was what I wanted to do all along and she was the first person to tell me it was a good idea. I had found my support. So away I went.  Easy as that.

And since then, and during this past year, I have been having the time of my life. This has quite honestly been one of the best. I'm happy. I am comfortable with who I am. I can face whatever comes my way and there is freedom in knowing that. I am not a slave to my life anymore. I make the rules. Like a boss. 

So as this year comes to an end and a new one is only days away I hope that all of you will find happiness as well. Actually, it's not even that you have to find it, you just have to realize it. I hope that you realize that you are capable of being happy. And if you are already happy then I am happy for you. But I know it's not easy. So this past year was about me and now it's your turn. Make 2011 about you and your happiness. 

Happy New You Year! 

The Death Penalty

It was announced today that the jury in the Steven Hayes case recommended the death penalty for his part in the slaying of the Petit Family of Cheshire, Connecticut. The story of what happened to that family makes me sick and I can't spend too much time thinking about it but this recent sentencing has made me even more upset. Sentencing him to death is a cop out. It's a get out of jail free card.

Even Hayes' Attorney made the case for the death penalty being an easy out for Hayes. He noted that Hayes has lost 80lbs in jail, has lost all privacy, and is "an animal in a zoo." He said that putting Hayes to death would, "end his misery."

I think that when emotions run high in a case like this, people feel like they want to tear the suspects apart themselves. We all want justice from this case. We want to put these men to death ourselves and see him suffer and look at the lifeless body and feel safe again.

But killing a killer makes us killers. I don't care if the state condones it. It's giving up on our citizens, no matter how nasty and terrible they may be. And the excitement that people feel when they hear that someone is receiving the death penalty, makes me sick to my stomach. "The death penalty! Yes!!" I feel like our society dies a little bit with each death sentence that gets doled out.

Evil exists, I know that, I've seen it. We see it on the news everyday. But killing an evil person does not remove the evil from the world. But America is all about the kill. We want the big pay off. The cum shot. We're pleasure seekers and the death penalty makes us feel satisfied. We're disillusioned. We're desperate for some release. With the death penalty we place our criminals in sterile rooms, with signed papers and professionals and we call it even.

I say "we" because even I felt great for a few seconds after hearing that he would probably be sentenced to death. I literally felt happy from hearing the news. "He's getting what he deserves" said the emotional side of my brain. But then logic, and sense and reasoning crept in and then I just felt sad. He did something terrible, I am not saying that he doesn't deserve to be punished but I think that any of our citizens deserve to be helped. Like his attorney said, he's lost any trace of an independent life in prison. He's being punished. His life will never be the same. And that is when the state and professionals can step in and take this empty person and make him whole again. Give him the tools to change his life. At least try. It's just terrible when we give up on someone. It's not like he would ever be released. America's karma is already so fucked up. Why not try to help more people? Set some things right. Show those people who feel hopeless that there are people who can help them. Maybe if Hayes and his partner Komisarjevsky had received the proper help when they were first incarcerated for their various multiple felonies in the past things would be different now.

See? We set criminals free and then become upset when they keep on committing crimes. Putting someone in a cell doesn't change them for the better and killing a criminal doesn't right the crime. We need to do more. We need to take responsibility for letting these crimes happen. They had both already been to jail! Why were they released in the first place? What actual evidence had they exhibited that they were good to go back into society?

They served their time? OK, great. What programs did they have to complete while in prison? Did they undergo any psychological testing? Were they given opportunities to find jobs and support groups? Were they checked up on when they were released?

And if they did receive these things then they didn't work. We need to rework the system. Make it effective and stop making prison a holding station for criminals in between crimes.

It's all fucked up. We're all too emotional. Too lazy to do more.

I live the town over from where these crimes occurred. I've been to the grocery store where Hayes and Komisarjevsky first set their sights on the Petit family and I've been to the bank where Mrs. Petit was forced to remove the family's life savings on that fateful day. It could have been my family. It could have been me. But it wasn't. I'm still here to see this all play out and to make my little opinions about what I think should happen. If it was my family in that situation and I was able to survive, like Mr. Petit, I can't imagine how I would feel. Or what justice would feel like when the men who killed my family are before me.

People have said that once those men are put to death that then the family can finally be at peace. Like I said, I don't know how it feels to be in that situation but I can imagine that peace is something that I would never feel again. Peace would be to have my family back. To never have to face the fact that these men did horrible things to my family and that they are gone now. Peace would not be found in the death penalty, not for me.

Hayes wants to die. He wanted to look like a monster because he said he felt guilty and remorseful and he wanted the jury to sentence him to death. He tried to kill himself after the crimes but was unsuccessful.

So yeah, lets give him exactly what he wants and say that it's what he deserves. We'll do the work for him.

We won't help them live successfully but damnit if you want to die, we got you covered.


Sources:
CNN: http://bit.ly/d1Gcru
Boston Herald: http://bit.ly/ctguEr

The Other Side

"I've taken up the habit of documenting the scene outside my kitchen window, when I am home to actually see it.  It is a known fact among my friends that my favorite time of day during the Summer is 6pm (between 4:30 and 5pm in Winter) because the light is beautiful. It is what I imagine the word "sun-kissed" to look like. Everything is bathed in a soft sunlight and the world just seems quiet and magical and peaceful.

From my kitchen window I can see a church with a cross in the steeple that appears to be neon at night. It is the church where Sen. Ted Kennedy's funeral was held. I watched the funeral procession from the front porch of my apartment. People visit the church to see where the Senator was honored and where 4 U.S. Presidents came to pay their respects to the liberal lion. But to me, this church means home.

I've spoken of home a few times here and it has always meant Hamden. Home has always been my parents house. The small Cape Cod style house on Willard Street but Boston has been a kind of home for me too. There was a time when I loved living here and during college when I would have to return to Hamden for the Summer I would be dying to get back to this city. Now I have 218 days left here and I am committed to enjoying each and every one of them.

Because I know that when I return to my parent's house I will miss Boston. I know that there will be days where I wish I could return. I have learned so much here, about everything, and it is not a place I want to come to resent. I made these decisions, no one else. Boston is not to blame for my unhappiness. I like to say that my unhappiness lives in Boston but I am in charge of that feeling. I can remember being unhappy in Hamden too sometimes. It follows me anywhere really.

Boston is not unhappiness but it is also no longer where I want to call home. It is an old city and I have grown old with it and within it. It will never be New York, New Haven or New Orleans but it will always be a place on the map that I can point to and call my home, even if it was just for a little while.

I choose to be optimistic. I don't want to return here someday and find that my resentment, my unhappiness and my debt still live here. For the next 218 days that I have left I will turn around my relationship with Boston and leave this place feeling nothing but love towards it. Like so many of my relationships, it is time for me to accept that the best is behind us and I am blessed to have experienced it. Any of it and all of it. I want to be able to look back on these days and smile, knowing I tried my best.

So that is why I have been photographing the sunsets. Another day done here and another day closer to home. But it is always a way for me to appreciate the day I had and a way for me to look back, months from now, and remind myself how beautiful life can be even when it seems to be completely painted with pain."

 I wrote this months ago and didn't post it for some reason. I think I had issues with the sentence structuring or something. Now I am sitting on the other side of those 218 days, in my parents house- my childhood home, missing Boston. I did everything I said I would do in that post. I made my peace with the city and now feel only love for it. There is no room for regret. My love for that city could fill it and I can't wait to go back and visit.

I'll miss the people the most. I made some wonderful friends in Boston. On dark days, they are the sunset. They are my 6pm.

My memories of Boston aren't based on what historic building I was near or what bar I was in or who stood on the same spot as me so many years ago. To me, those people, my friends, are the buildings. They are the history that I care to remember because we helped create it together. Even the people who have since left Boston. They have all helped to makes these past few years the best of my life. I hope to keep making memories with them.

Now that I am in the suburbs the buildings are smaller, the streets are less crowded and people look at me all confused when I tell them the name of my town. It's okay though. I am happy to be home. It was my plan all along and even though I fought it at some points I knew that this was the only choice I could make. I look out the kitchen now and see a different view but it's just as beautiful.

And someday, it will be this view that I will miss.

Shattered

I broke a glass tabletop into a million pieces the other day.

I was moving it from the basement to the backyard but it never made it out. It simply just exploded in my hands, or that's how it felt anyway. It was a large piece of glass and then it turned into many smaller pieces of glass, completely unrecognizable from it's previous shape. No longer able to hold anything. I collapsed on the floor and cried. I cried because I was in trouble but I mostly cried because I related with the glass. It reminded me of this quote by Margaret Atwood, "You can wet the rim of a glass and run your finger around the rim and it will make a sound. This is what I feel like: this sound of glass. I feel like the word shatter. I want to be with someone."

It was the best visualization of an emotion that I have ever seen and even though I was in trouble, and I was covered in cuts and bleeding I still had that moment of "yeah, me too." And even after it broke into a million pieces and spread itself all over the basement, it was making the most beautiful noise. It was still breaking, and rubbing against itself and it created this chorus of broken glass. It shattered, shimmered and sang.

It made me mad. I shouldn't have been so impatient, I should have been more careful but I took a risk and being human, and not having the power to predict the future I just did what I thought I should do and it literally blew up in my face.

I was having a conversation with my best friend the other day about how life is a gamble. You can never really know if you are making the right decisions or if the "good" decisions you are making now will turn into bad ones. Lost chances, regrets, mistakes...its all a risk.

It's a risk when you go into a relationship with someone. It's a risk to even call it a relationship. To look forward to seeing someone, to kiss them, to know their body, their taste, to know what it feels like to have their body pressed to yours to hear them whisper in your ear...because you never know when it will all go away. We don't have control over other people and no matter how much you want something to go the way you have imagined it, there is a good chance that it won't.

And when it doesn't, like in a relationship- we say we are heartbroken. Our idea is shattered, and so is our heart. And so is the glass.

I picked up the glass, teary eyed, and I was mad about so many things but mostly mad about the fact that things change. Things. Everything. Without warning and it becomes your job to pick up the pieces. But there are pieces that can't be found, or are too difficult to reach so they remain there forever. Maybe you like the reminder, but you know that you have to be careful now to not get cut. There are new dangers, new insecurities to tend to. So you wear shoes. Build a wall. Avoid a room, a place, a person.  You learn, and you move on. Buy a plastic replacement, something that won't break this time. Invest in something that will last forever.

But life is a gamble. It's a risk. It's scary and sad and loud and quiet and illuminating and deafening. It is what it is and nothing is guaranteed.

The cuts are already healing. There had to have been at least a dozen of them because after the sheet of glass broke I picked up the pieces with no regard to how much it hurt to hold the jagged glass in my fingers. All I saw was red, red, red. But then I washed off the blood, got a broom, wiped away the tears and cleaned it all up. And now the glass is gone. The cuts are fading and I am moving on. I will forever be moving on until something else breaks, or I find the glue to hold it all together.

"I feel like the word shatter. I want to be with someone."

The Good

If everything had gone as planned, as I imagined it when I first started graduate school, I would be finishing up by now. I would be handing in my portfolio and would have a plane ticket to Arizona booked to take the Child Life Certification Exam. I would be applying for jobs and hopefully going on interviews. But I'm not. I chose to stop.

I can't honestly say that I don't feel any remorse over the fact that I won't be getting my Master's in a few weeks. I have thankfully stayed in touch with everyone in my program and I envy them. They've pushed through, done their best and now they will graduate and have Masters degrees. The next chapter of their lives are beginning and I couldn't be happier for them. I'm happy to still be included in their group. I think it comes with the field. We stick close because not many people know what we have been through. The Child Life world is a small one. Almost like an island. Isolated, but still a driving force in the world. It exists even if not many people know about it. I look at these amazing women and I envy them but more than that I am grateful for them. They made my first year at grad school unforgettable and they made my last few months of grad school manageable.

I try to find the good in every situation, no matter how horrible it was. I think that there is always something to learn and you always come away with some good. They are the good. They are the gifts that I will carry with me forever. I wish them all the best.

And as the weight of grad school is slowly lifted from their shoulders I find myself not any more clear about what I want to do with my future. A new career pops into my head everyday and on same days I think I could just be a waitress forever. All I know, and all I've ever known, is that I want to help people. As a little girl I wanted to be a teacher (but mostly just to write on the chalkboards), then I wanted to start my own magazine for teens, then I wanted to be a writer (but who really knows what that means), then I switched to being a psychologist and then eventually landed on being a CLS. But now I'm back at the beginning- back to being just like that little girl who sat on her bed dreaming of what she will do when she grows up.

I am, I am, I am

Last week, as I was heading home for Easter, I saw a little boy in the bus station testing his limits. He would walk away from his parents, or sometimes run as far as he could either before he got too scared or his parents called him back. He even walked backwards at one point, maybe to see the look on his parent’s faces as he got farther and farther away. Or maybe he enjoyed the thrill of seeing the distance between them. But he would always come running back to them each time.

When I first started dealing with my depression and had my first meeting with a psychiatrist I shared that the only book I could seem to read lately was "The Bell Jar." This led her to ask me if I have ever had thoughts of ending my life, naturally. But I wasn't looking for tips on the best way to kill myself, I just related to Esther Greenwood and her feelings of being sad and stuck. I knew what it was like to feel like I was "stewing in my own sour air." I was miserable and I found comfort in Esther's shared pain.

But I never wanted to die. I just wanted to escape. I was ready to take any bus, train or plane out of the city and go…anywhere. I didn’t care. I just wanted out of the life I was leading but not out of life as a whole. I never felt hopeless. I always knew that I would get better because I was taking actions to prevent this darkness from destroying me. And really, I think that I wanted to escape more than I was depressed.

I can remember the exact moment I decided to make my escape.

It was in the sky. That rainbow colored sky on my trip back to Boston from New Orleans. I was supposed to be writing a paper on the plane but I just couldn’t do it and as I looked out the window and tried to take so many mental pictures of that sky I made up my mind that I would stop doing everything that I was currently doing. None of it was working. I had to leave it all behind.

It was the fact that I felt like I couldn’t escape before that made me depressed. I felt stuck in my life. I was stuck at work, at school and at my internship. But it was on that plane ride that I realized that everyday I was making a choice to be unhappy. So I decided to choose to be happy instead.

And then the desire to be happy outweighed the desire to escape which all but eradicated the depression I was experiencing. I don’t doubt that I was depressed during that time, and I am aware that it could come back but I feel stronger now. I am making decisions that will hopefully prevent that horrible, sinking feeling from ever coming back.

Because I don’t want to settle. I don’t want to compromise, or just put up with something. I want to be passionate about my life. I want to be living it in exactly the manner that I desire. I want to be happy forever and not let anything, or anyone get in my way of living a fulfilling life. And if I get the desire to walk away- I will.

The Self-Help Section

I've stopped doing everything that I thought would help me get better. I no longer see a therapist once a week and I rarely take my meds. For as great as the medication was for quieting some of the depression and anxiety, they also prevented me from feeling so many other things. I felt like everything that made me who I am were cut down to smaller sizes as well, and some things just seemed to vanish. It's hard to describe. So I stopped taking them.

I stopped going to the therapist because Christmas break came up and their offices weren't open and then I just lost interest in going. I felt like I always had to repeat myself too and that is a major pet peeve of mine. Especially when it's to someone whose job it is to listen.

I think finding a job has really helped me to feel better. No longer having to worry about where my money is going to come from, and how I will pay for rent. All that worry over money has made me more relaxed with my view on money too. Money has always been the deciding factor of my mood. When I got it I'm happy and when I don't I'm depressed. And now that I am making money I am happy but I have also come to understand that I let a piece of paper dictate my happiness. Yes it does keep a roof over my head and food on the shelves, so for those reasons money is important, but I have also learned (or rather, decided) that I can choose to be happy whether I have money or not.

I mean, that is what these past few months have been about anyway. Realizing that I have a choice. I'm making the choice to be happy now. I'm recognizing the weak spots in my life. Those tender spots that used to make me cringe and hide are now just encouragement to change. I need to be vocal, I need to share how I feel with others, I need to be honest. I need to go out with friends and spend my money wisely. I'm listening to myself again and it feels really good.

I know I'm not cured by any means but I do know that I am making progress, and it's not just due to a fatter wallet. I think some people in my life don't see the change. They are the same people who peered so closely at me a couple of months ago when I broke my silence. Like they were looking to see the physical damage depression had done. I think it's just hard for people to realize that there isn't anything to see. It's all internal, and I can talk about it but that still doesn't give some people a sense of relief. But I know what's going on. I've got a plan. A small one. A day by day one and it's working for me.

We all want evidence, I understand that. I'm the first to deny something until I see it for myself. It's not real until I can verify it and feel comfortable with my findings. We all consider ourselves experts of something whether it be a theory, a lifestyle or even a person. There is that saying, "I know you better than you know yourself," but that's bullshit. There is no way to really know someone. Murakami wrote, "You'll live forever in your own private library." That I believe. There are volumes and volumes of stories that no one can touch. Sometimes you decide to read a page to someone else but it's often the condensed version. We paraphrase in order to keep something for ourselves.

So no, I don't believe that you can ever really know someone, but what you can do is trust them. You can take what they give you and hold it as truth. That's all I ask. I wish they would understand that they don't have to look so closely. I don't need to be held under a microscope to find change. To find the proof that I actually do feel a lot better. You have no idea how differently things are now. I actually want to get out of bed in the morning. I don't cry everyday anymore. I'm enjoying my life.

Maybe someday you can see what I see. But until then, you've just got to trust. And just be there. That's all I need.

It's hard to come up with a title sometimes.

My 3-day "vacation" has begun. I asked for the weekend off because one of my friends from college is getting married on the 13th so I wanted to have the weekend off to prepare (Friday), enjoy (Saturday) and recuperate (Sunday). I am just so excited to have the opportunity to stay up late and sleep in. Staying up late is a guilty pleasure of mine. I love being awake at 3am when everyone else is asleep. I've never been a morning person so if this is why people like to wake up early, I will never experience that for myself. I'll stick with being a night owl.

So this wedding. I can't believe that my friends are starting to get married. I have 2 this year that I am attending. I feel like marriage is like a cold. Once the weddings start then everyone gets wedding fever and then everyone starts getting married. And then they start having babies and then I will get invited to kid's birthday parties.

I think it's the fact that I am somewhat regressing (moving back home) while my friends are turning into adults (getting hitched) that makes me freak out a little. It's not about feeling pressured to get married now, it's just more of a reality check that while I feel like I am playing "adult" there are people my age who are living it.

And dating is a whole other story.

I've never been a fan of willingly putting myself into awkward situations and dating is chock full of awkwardness. Of course there have been interested parties, and I've been interested but nothing culminated into, well, anything.

There was a time where I threw myself into the lions den- I joined a dating website. I felt like I was at a good point in my life, and despite living in a city of students I wasn't meeting any worthwhile candidates. So I joined, I saw and I dated. I went on 4 first dates total and even went on a second date. I am currently (and pathetically) still pining after one of those individuals that I dated so I guess, all in all, it wasn't such a bad experience. I guess.

It gave me a lot of great stories to tell. I went on a date with a film director whose movie I saw in an actual movie theater, which was a first. Then there was that guy who was really tall, and we had a lot in common, but he had told me his name was Hunter and then when we met up with his friend's they called him Sam...and he had told me that he was a law student and then on the date he told me that he edited movies for Gus Van Sant. Not a terrible turn of events but I was confused enough to not respond to any requests for follow up dates. Lying is kind of a red flag.

Then there was the one guy who was great, but seemed too into me (it's a turn off) and then there was the guy who was amazing- but I let him go for the great guy. It would be so helpful if there was a letter that would arrive in the mail when you are making a bad decision. Or an email. Just something that would give you a heads up that you should not be giving preference to someone who is going to kind of creep you out in a few months and to just be smart and stick with the cool, level-headed, all around awesome guy. And it would be great if that letter mentioned that one day the awesome guy would move to an island and you might not be able to talk to him or see him again.

Pining...

I guess all of this is just a long-winded way of saying I don't plan on getting married any time soon. I'm okay with that. I've never been the type of girl who sets time limits for things. I mean, I used to listen to Doris Day's recording of "Que Sera, Sera" on repeat at age 7. Whatever will be will be. The future's not ours to see, all that business. Never thought, "married by 25, 2 kids by 30." I just figure that if it's meant to happen, it will and with the way things have been going I have learned that plans rarely go as planned anyway.

Home is wherever I'm with you

I have written and rewritten this certain entry many times over the past few days. They have all been slightly different versions of the same thing.

What I’m trying to say, what I’ve been trying to say is that I want to leave Boston.

There is a very distinct feeling I get every time I return to Boston after being away for a while. It’s taken me a while to sort it out, to identify it and give it a name but I’ve finally discovered exactly what this feeling is. It is my heart, breaking.

I often wondered about it as I sat in Union Station after a weekend with my family. All I could feel was an immense ache. I thought it had to do with what I was returning to when in actuality it had more to do with what I was leaving behind.

So this is what I will do. In 233 days from this blog post I will return to Connecticut. I will return to the people who gave me life so that they can help me sort out and clean up this haphazard life I have been leading.

It is the final step in a series of events that I did not originally know would lead me back to my parent’s house. I’ve let go of everything else that has kept me in Boston. I’ve stopped telling myself that I can find happiness on my own, here. There are no more stories to tell myself, no one to try to pretend to be and in 9 months there will be no reason to stay.

Trying to get something real by telling yourself stories is a trap anyway. It’s an addiction. We numb ourselves with stories because we imagine that the risk of being honest will be too painful to bear.

But what I have learned, after these past 2 years, is that nothing is more painful than sitting on a train full of strangers getting farther and farther away from the only people who really know me. The only people with the cure for my broken heart. I feel their love no matter where I am but now more than ever I need to see it. I need to feel it wrapped around me. I need to wake up to it in the morning and fall asleep to it at night.

I need to hear its song.

And I will learn the words and sing it back.