One, Two,...a Thousand Later

Truck. Truck. Truck with lights. Siren. Truck. Truck. Cousin. Brother. Truck. Car. Sticker. Hat. Sweater. Sticker. Truck. Song and truck. Song. Then truck. Siren. Truck. Truck. Uncle. Cousin. Truck. Friend. Truck. Truck. Other cousin. Truck. Sticker. Sticker. Hitch. Dad. Truck. Sticker. Jacket. Song.

Infinite are the items, people, and things that surround my day. I step outside for one second and this is what happens. Abnormal how often it all occurs and how it all coincides.

Signs? Or insignificant coincidences?

Torture? Or realization? Or are they millions of band-aids I need in order to stop associating them with the thought of you?

I can't keep seeing you in my head, dreaming of you at night, remembering it all, and wondering whether you even care. I can't keep missing you.

But I feel like I'm not meant to stop. I feel like this is what it all means. Someway or another the world and God is trying to say there is meaning to the confusion.

There is meaning to two okay's, to a scruffy face man, and to the day to day coincidence that can't just be mere coincidences. This doesn't just happen. Right?

I Walked Into This Place...

I walked into this place because this is where the road took me. The day had progressed from morning sunlight and warmth to an afternoon of clouds and bitter cold air.

I walked into this place because I needed to center myself from the chaos that surrounds me. From the four deaths just this last month, to the the one year mark of others dying, to the the hectic changes in friend and family and companion relationships, to the unbearable emotions, to the unequivocal confusion, to the problems I try to fix, and to the wearing down of everyone’s vitality. Work, family, and stress are already tearing my body apart in a physical manner.

By coming to this place I did not need to talk or explain the situation at hand for it is already known.

I walked into this place to think by not thinking. To listen to silence, to feel hope surround me whole, and to exhale in ease.

I walked into this place because it is one place I can go to get away from the chaos of the world and into its peace.

I walked into this place and I lit a candle for it all. Among the numbers of candles already there, I lit this one because I know I can’t always be where I am needed and because sometimes the words don’t come easy. I was hoping this one candle would burn as a reminder of all that has come to pass and all that has yet to happen. As a reminder of the strength, the hope, the faith, the compassion, and the care that is innate.

Every day you decide. You decide on where you will go and the intention.

Today I walked into this place.

Be The Grown-Up

All my life it has been these words repeated to me. This phrase involves some 'doublethink' from 1984.

Caution: Every situation involves thought to determine how to be the grown-up. A.k.a. it's relative.

In an argument it's instinctive to want to come out on top. When I am right I know I am right and am not going to live it down. But with every argument that comes around I'm always being told to be the grown-up, ignore the situation at hand, don't instigate, don't steep to their level; to relent.

Am I not the youngest fighting against a sea of elders. Should not they be the ones taking on the role of maturity rather than me?

Now when it comes to not talking to someone I am told to be the bigger person...yet again. Don't act like them. Don't be immature and play games. Rather take the upper hand and try to resolve what there is, or try to move on without a chip on my shoulder.

Standards. Always standards. I know I matured in thought and understanding before others my age early on in life but am I allowed to have an immature, selfish, rash moment every once in a while? To hold out on talking to someone who is acting irrational? To continue to argue my point when I am right?

Sometimes it gets tiring taking the high road in situation such as these. Sometimes it gets hard having to bite my tongue and not say everything that the electrical impulses in my brain are firing in my head. But I do.

My mouth and my mind go into a state of filtration. Like a dam I keep back from inundating the atmosphere around me with the vibrations of my complaints, my truths, harsh realities, emotions, confessions, and vulnerability.

Though I don't want to admit or agree to the notion, in every situation or rough patch or argument someone needs to be the grown-up. Thus...me.

And this is where I am.

I'm afraid of running out of things to say.

You and I, we talk long, write long. We're the ones who have to go back and cut. We're the ones spilling over, excessive, caught with threads of words spilling out of our shoes as we trample word limits and talk over the beeps on voicemail recordings.

There is always something to say in my house. Something to argue, contest, observe. Somebody with unfinished questions and somebody else with half-completed answers. Silence is a prelude to a story. In my house, we like to test people with questions, we like putting people on the spot. In my house, we talk to strangers. We tell people when we recognize them from Girl Scout trainings, the car mechanic's parking lot. We tell people when we want something from them. We say what we want to say when it needs to be said. We protest things. We march for things. We shout things. We argue on purpose.

You and I, we always have something to say. You can find me in the stacks of old journals stored in shoeboxes in my closet. I can find you in those journals, in the green journal we shared. You and I, we wanted records of what we had to say. Look: almost six years later, we're so much the same.

And yet, I think my greatest fear is that someday, I won't have anything to say. I think my greatest fear is that someday, I'll get lost in things - looming due dates, the right shade of foundation, shaky grade point averages, choosing a major, weekend plans. I'm afraid I'll stop discovering new music, picking poems to recite, looking for resolution, telling stories, listening. I'm afraid I'll stop writing.

I'm afraid of not finding joy in hectic academic schedules, unexpected smiles, difficult readings, cold creek water, Pablo Neruda's twenty love poems, differentiable equations and integration, the smoky smell of camping tents and stars, seminars, chocolate, the best of professors, long phone conversations, new people, Mexican markets, the smoggy sunsets from the hills of Los Angeles, digging for sand crabs at the ocean, uncontrollable laughter, the hardest yoga poses, the desert, museums, Frida Kahlo's self-portraits, sadness. I'm afraid of the day I stop finding joy in sadness.

So every day is a postponement of that day. My journals, my poems, my conversations with you, my conversations with others, this blog - they are all postponements of that day. And this is where I am.