To Whom I Owe Who I Am Now

There are certain people that have affected me in ways that have dramatically altered who I am as a person. It is in this blog that I shall take the time to give each of them the recognition I may not give them otherwise.


Mom-
My mom always pushed me to be my best and to not stop writing my stories. Although, I think the road to get there was a bit trying and embarrassing. When I was in forth grade, I was writing in my journal, a story, and it was rather- adult. My mother had gotten into those books on tape recently and there's quite a lot of smut. So being the forth grader that I was, I copied that down, and basically wrote (a detailed description) about two people having sex. My mom was called in with me to the therapist. We all laughed about it a few years later and she always supported my gift of writing. Not to mention, carry me for nine months, slice open her stomach for me, and uh, raise me for sixteen years.


Dad-
My dad may not always know how to raise a sixteen year old daughter or how to be the best father he can be. I know that growing up he didn't have a great childhood and has been trying his hardest to be everything opposite of his dad. I have always loved my dad, in fact found myself jealous of my brother for getting to spend all the time with him growing up. But as I grew up, I realized that I spent the moments that meant most with my father. And now, being sixteen while my mother is off working a 9-5 and I'm at school, staying home with my father isn't always what it's cracked up to be. However, he's my papa as I call him. I'll never have another one, and I'll never love him any less than I do now and I'll always be comforted by the smell of his t-shirts.


Shell-
Shell has been the closest thing to a sister that I've ever had. She's always been there for me as her sister, Stephy, has been there for her. We grew up together, and yeah, we had our fights but who would we be without them? I remember running away from my house one time because we didn't want to separate and we ran to the park near my house. There was a large embankment that we climbed and found a small space where we could lay down and watch the stars. We lay there, holding hands in the dark as our moms were outside screaming our names and our dads drove around looking for us. We finally went home, not wanting to separate. But now, with her being at college, and me still in high school, we've changed maturities, or changed keys as I like to think of it. She's got her boyfriend and her school and her college friends and she has a sister, so what use am I? I have my longings for a girlfriend and my guard and my high school friends and a brother who annoys the crap out of me. And what use is she to me? The sweet relief of someone to listen and help and just be there for me. She always used to be...


Grandma and Grandpa-
My grandparents were always anxious to get me to their house for a weekend or a few weeks during summer. Now, I was always a mommy's girl, and being away from my mom- it was practically death. I remember how I learned my own phone number. My grandmother told me that I could call my mom after dinner one day when I had been crying for a really long time. So after dinner, I grabbed the phone and asked her to call my mom. She looked at me and said, "You mean, you don't know her phone number?" So until I learned my mom's phone number I couldn't call her. It may have seemed like the plague to me but in the long run, it helped a lot. My grandpa was always one for games. He enjoys making sound effects at you, poking your side when he thinks you're not looking and just being happy. If there's anything that makes him happy, its grandkids filling the house, and them asking about his many adventures as a boy and the photo albums he proudly displays. My grandparents have shaped a lot of who I am and I am thankful for that. They also love to read my stories and never judge them. They give me many challenges too, like when grandma asked me to write about her growing up.


Ethan-
He is my best friend and practically soulmate. We would most likely already have married each other in Las Vegas and had a baby named Shaniqua by now if we were straight. Ethan always supports me, no matter the choice. He speaks his mind on things he thinks that I'm doing that are wrong. We fight like an old married couple with nothing left to talk about and love each other deeply. There's not much to say about Ethan because you would just have to see us together to understand what I mean. And underneath our sarcastic shells, we both understand each other one hundred percent. Now if only we were both sane.


Julia-
When I first met Julia, I thought she was weird. But I soon came to realize that we were both weird and I couldn't find a better friend anywhere else. Julia always lends an ear or eye and we  enjoy just venting on each other. And what could be more than ranting about how much boys are idiots? Julia has become the sister I always wished I had. I hope that in the years to come our friendship lasts and that we continue to have our lunches out, after all, she is the pregnant one. (not really, it's an inside joke)


Sam-
Sam may enjoy pushing all my buttons and pissing me off but she's always been one to help with a problem. If she feels like it that is. She was my captain and someone I looked up to greatly. Sam and I shared a love for sarcasm and had similar tastes in viewing the world- it's annoying. We've both had our fair share of stupid people picking on us, me for my mental disabilities and her for being blind. Sam always pushed me to continue writing something that she enjoyed because it entertained her and helped me to become a great captain (or so she says I am).  If I didn't enjoy pushing Sam's buttons back, maybe one day I'll finally stop asking what her favorite color is.


Nathan-
He came here fresh from Las Vegas. Not knowing anybody he ventured into the great unknown called the La Costa Canyon band room and met us freaks. He soon came to love us all because we accepted him without really asking many questions. Nathan is like the brother I always wanted. He's kind and considerate, not to mention extremely funny and easy to get along with. He has helped me through some really hard times and allowed me to vent and cry on his shoulder when no one else would. I can only hope that my friendship with Nathan will get stronger because I basically chained myself to him and he's stuck with me whether he likes it or not. Same with Julia.


Guard Buddies-
I only have five words for you: you guys are freaking crazy! They are crazy but supportive and without their ability to understand that I have no idea what the hell I'm doing, we wouldn't fight as much. But I love them and I like to think they're not planning my overthrow.


Lori-
I would like to give a shout out to my Aunt Lori, who inspired me to keep writing this blog.


So these people have changed me. And they all changed me for the better. 


And they're all crazy, yes, but I love them all in their own ways.


Thanks guys :)

Never Wrong, Always Right

While talking to my friend Victoria, she tried to convince me that I was wrong- about everything. That one, snuggies weren't backwards robes that make people look stupid, two, that the season finale of True Blood would have been better had Alexander Skarsgard shown up in spandex, and three, that the name she picked for one of my characters wasn't as good as what another friend picked. I know, it seems that we only argue over stupid and pointless stuff, but I came across a saying the other day, "I'm willing to admit that I may not always be right, but I am never wrong." by Samuel Goldwyn. Being her usual self, Victoria didn't really understand what this was saying.

However, the fact was that snuggies ARE backwards robes and are only for moronic people who do not know how to properly use a blanket. They make you look like an idiot and fool when you wear a robe backwards! The season finale of True Blood would hypothetically have been so much better if Alexander Skarsgard had shown up in the pink spandex as told by the book but the way that the season was produced cut that scene out. In the book, Sookie would have gone to a house for a party with Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) who was pretending to be a gay guy. The vampire, Eric, was supposed to protect her from a mythical creature but it didn't go down like that. And, the name she picked, which was Wyatt Alexander, was not as great as Jonah Laithe. So it was more of a personal opinion there because it's my character.

There were some points where I just wanted to give up because I hate arguing with her, it brings us down to a way more pathetic childlike way that I hate to be in. However, trying to tell someone that you don't like their idea as well as another persons, not so easy. Plus, we just clash. So, I came to the conclusion that I am never wrong, but always right. Which yes, to some I may seem wrong but to myself it's not. In truth, nothing is always right or wrong to me, just sure or unsure. And that's about all I'm able to offer, whether I'm sure that's right or if I'm unsure. 

But- I'm always right.

Liz's Melody

I know that with the recent holidays, everything and everyone has been on hyper drive and I myself have ignored the allure of my passion- writing. I'll admit, the holidays excite me, the lights dangling happily from houses and trees twinkling with either rainbow or white lights. Some have certain colored ornaments dangling proudly from their staged spots in windows while others display their family's moments haphazardly. It always made me wonder, why in front of a window? It would take a lot just to start going into an answer for this question. You see, to answer this question, a certain sense of religion must be set deep within me right? Well I do not believe in any religion nor do I aspire to anytime soon or ever. I have oft wondered what creates such devote peoples but I try my hardest not to step on toes so, to flip a bitch as my father says, I shall forget the current course upon which I had set myself.


With the holidays I have found myself even deeper within my sense of the mysterious depths that haunt those in depression. While my mother will ardently claim that I am not depressed, I am merely going through phases, I disagree. I may not know for sure or even claim myself to be depressed, I find myself wading into their depths. I have found therapists before quite antagonizing yet I always felt a certain sense of safety knowing that the secrets I have bottled within myself are safely stored upon tapes for studying and scrutiny. I asked my mother to return to one, I even told her I was depressed. I even went to the lengths of telling my beloved cousin Shell that I was depressed. I wanted to see a therapist, to start making strides in returning to the surface but of course, its my mother. Now I wouldn't say that I was upon the spot to harm myself in anyway besides emotional pain from memories, but I would like to resolve things. Like the death of Kammy. 


My friend Nathan asked me a few days before Christmas why I kept myself here, in those depths just waiting for the darkness to completely swallow me? I tried to explain to him that I lost Kammy, she held me here, she meant so much to me and how could anyone understand? How could he understand that I had no more good memories to start my accent to the surface? That I didn't choose to be here, I just am. But he swiftly reminded me that he himself had lost his father, that his pain was more than my own yet he picked himself up from the depths he had found himself in and changed his life. That I did indeed chose to be here and I had so much promise within me, so much left to live. That there was hope coursing through my veins, I just wasn't accepting it. I asked him, what is my hope? What is my promise? What future do I have where I am happy? How do you know these things? He told me that I had told him. I laughed silently to myself and he said that if I didn't know the answers to these questions maybe I should wade some more down here and when I figured them out I would know it was all an elaborate chimera. If I only I believed him.


So I did look around in my waters and I found a shimmering light, something that had to mean something. It was almost a flashlight in a completely black room. I swam towards it and found it to be the novel I was in the process of writing, Liz's Melody. It's about a girl named Liz who is a lesbian and lost her lover Maya to cancer. It's about Liz learning to how to move on from Maya's death and help her friends, Chloe, Aly, Lex, and Chris. Upon her journey, her brother Colin struggles with the deafening past and her sister Melanie comes out of banishment with her partner Temprence. They all join together to help Liz realize that no matter how broken she saw herself, each person had a piece of her that they had been gluing together all along, that Liz was never broken. And I believe that if I make an effort to finish Liz's Melody and get it printed, that maybe I will have realized Nathan's advice and I will have realized that I too was never really broken. And I hope that these things will come true.


Please email me if you would like a preview of Liz's Melody.

The Year of My Upheaval

Fourth grade was the year everything changed. In this year, I was almost placid thoroughly, and owed someone for that. It seemed as if I went from being the frugal child I once was, to a follower to a plain weirdo who sat alone at recess. I was supplant to the world and it seemed no cared except my mom. In the third grade I had thrown a giant hissy fit for a substitute teacher. Not knowing what to do with me, she placed me out in the hall where I cried until I felt I couldn’t cry anymore. A teacher whose class was in the computer lab found me in the quad, her name was Mrs. Green. She took me gently to her room, shared some of her chocolate muffin with me, allowed me to help her write the day’s lesson plan on the white board and then returned me to my sub where I was perfectly complacent until the next year. Mrs. Green taught fourth grade and she became my teacher.

Being the very observant person she is, she noticed my struggle for words and grasping things. She brought this up to my mom who had already known about the problems. I sat unaware of what they were talking about in the corner reading. That following weekend we went to my grandparent’s house where the world was always hard to grasp for me. It didn’t matter where we were but I just didn’t get things easily. After one particularly hard evening, I was eavesdropping on my mom and grandparents in the down stairs living room. I heard her say; she has a learning disability and she’ll need to be placed in special education classes, away from all the other kids. I didn’t understand what the words meant at the time but my mom was crying and they were talking about me.

I soon came to realize that these words meant I was slightly mentally handicap with a learning disability. I was placed in special education classes away from all the other children. I spent hours at a time going over parts of speech and simple multiplication problems for second graders while the rest of my fourth grade class zoomed along. This was also the year my personality disorder began to surface and I was forced to take pills to drown out my internal voice. I felt sleepy and sluggish and eventually I needed a bolster within my own head. I stopped taking the medication but it didn’t stop the teasing and laughing. It didn’t stop the name calling or rumors. And it certainly didn’t help me get friends.

I was completely alone. No one cared about me. No one understood my struggles. No one accepted me. And I would soon come to realize that all I wanted was acceptance. I had felt this acceptance that same year when I joined group therapy and met a girl named Kammy. Our attraction was immediate, we were both quietly broken and knew that together we could withstand whatever was thrown at us. We wanted no one to know about our tryst and so we were never caught together in public or alone. The year of her departure was the year of her reveal. Kammy being three years my senior and fifteen when I was twelve announced she was gay. Kam told me she liked women- and she loved me. I was remiss to what it all meant but I understood perfectly when she kissed me that first time.

I immediately wanted to spurn her in that first perfect moment of bliss and I did for awhile. Eventually we couldn’t resist being apart and our era of email began. Kam and I had fallen out of touch by the time I was fourteen and dating my oldest crush, Noam. Do you remember Noam? He was my slave in third grade and we broke each others hearts. Over time this would be something we’d grow quite used to but at this point, we were head over heels and finally able to express it. I had ignored Kam and all her problems. I called myself her best friend and loved her to the fullest of my capacity yet I shunned her thoughtlessly. It wasn’t until I was sixteen that I would understand the error of my ways.

After my fling with Noam, I had met the perfect man and his name was David. We had met through my band director, Ms. Mattison. One day while I was talking to her during freshman year before a football game, David walked in and asked for the mascot uniform. We weren’t supposed to know who the mascot was but this blonde haired blue eyed boy caught my eye and held me there forever. He was perfect and my “only” true love. Towards the end of my freshman year, David and my love fell apart but it was still alive in me. In the middle of my sophomore year, David and I reconnected. I told him of my never lost love and he told me that he felt the same. Only after this did he tell me of his girlfriend that he wouldn’t give up for me because he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. I was crushed beyond belief. It was the start of that summer, the end of my sophomore year that he shunned me altogether.

It was also the start of that summer that I got an unexpected call from Kam. However, I didn’t answer it because I was too wrapped up in my heart break from David. I told myself that I would call Kammy tomorrow, that I would feel better then. That next night, with Kammy out of mind because I forgot, her step sister, Amy, called me. Her midnight phone call woke me from my peace and shattered my already fragile world. She killed my heart and soul with six words: Kammy’s dead, it was a suicide. My only true lesbian love had killed herself because she felt no one accepted her for being gay. It brought me back to memories of our emails:

“Kam, I miss you beyond belief and I think about the day you left me every single moment of my life. I remember our kiss and what it awakened within my soul. I love you undoubtedly, that I know for sure as well as you do. I love you as you love me, more than just friends but I don’t know if we can ever be. I don’t know if I can accept what that will make me. I don’t know if I could ever accept our love as a reality and until that day comes, I don’t know if I can accept you.”

I seem like a monster, I know. I practically killed the only good thing within my own soul. I know she was thinking of me and those words as she took her life out on her farm in North Dakota with her step-father’s rifle pointed to her face. I know that my face flashed before her eyes as the bullet pushed its way through her brain.

And I know I’ll never have her back.

I know that part of me will always be missing.

I just haven’t been able to search within my own soul to see what’s damaged beyond repair during the year of my upheaval. 

Holiday Parades and Gingerbread Houses

Each year, the La Costa Canyon High School Maverick Brigade marches the Encinitas Holiday parade. We all put on our uniforms, decorate our instruments and off we march down the 101 and play Santa Meets Sousa and enjoy ourselves as our baton twirler Kelly, twirls fire. Seems enjoyable right? A perfect experience? Wrong. Dead wrong. I’ve factored out the cold weather for us Southern California residents, the rain occasionally and the humiliation of a horrible performance by the Color Guard. I’m sure you all enjoy seeing us march up and down the street in our “dolly parton’s” or show uniforms spinning flags or holding LCC letters. Yet, this is the one time of year I hate.

My freshman year we wore our show uniforms which looked like Shamu. They were supposed to be masks because our show was entitled Music of the Night based off Phantom of the Opera but it didn’t turn out that way at all. There were nine of us all together and our coach at that time thought that you could fit five in the front and four in the back while spinning six foot flags. He was obviously wrong. I was placed at the end which was a mistake right there. If I had moved my flag at all, I would have hit either the person next to me each and every time along with all the people in the crowd. So I held it. I then called yelled at for not performing. It was something that I believed I was right in. And I was.

Sophomore year we were in our dolly parton uniforms which were old school baton uniforms. They were modest at best, came all the way up to our necks, like turtle necks without sleeves. They were forest green with a stripe of white. The skirt was forest green as well. They wouldn’t be the dolly partons without the gold sequin edges on everything. My captains, Sam, Liz and I wore these as we were the only ones left of those first nine. We held LCC letters on wooden dowels. Our letters were made out of Styrofoam, supported with sheets of cardboard and painted green and gold. Due to the cold, we had white long sleeve shirts on underneath, thermal tights and at least five pairs of socks stuffed into our cowboy boots. It was quite an experience. If I had to claim having fun at any of these, I would pick this one.

Junior year (this year) the five of us made presents. It was a three week long process of collecting the boxes, taping them together with extra supports, and then cutting out head and arm holes. We also were spinning giant candy canes. This took five people, two guard members, our band director, Ms. Mattison, and two members from the drumline. They cut PVC pipes that we had in the guard room into six pieces around the same height. They then taped them completely in white and added the red stripes. It took them two hours to complete this process. The day of the parade we spent at least an hour wrapping our boxes in different colors. I was red, so I had on a red thermal tee and wrapped my box in red paper with snowmen. Cassie and Lilianna were green so they wore green thermals and wrapped their boxes in green paper with candy canes. Becca was blue or our “Jew Box” and wore a blue thermal and wrapped her box in bluish silver paper with snowflakes. Victoria was white and wore a white thermal. Because she claimed she couldn’t wrap, we had her ask Ms. Mattison to help. Ms. Mattison ended up wrapping her box and we could all tell that she was pleased with herself at the end of it.

The holiday parades of my past aren’t exciting events, they usually end up being things I hate. I said before that I’d pick my sophomore year as my favorite holiday parade because it was bittersweet. My captains were graduating and I had relied on them for two years and cared greatly for them. We still talk even though they are away at college.

After my experiences with holiday parades, its Christmas time and that means gingerbread time. My best friend Julia and I have made plans to watch movies and bake gingerbread cookies with butter cream frosting. We will hook up our space heater and bury ourselves deep into fluffy white blankets and possibly pick up a cat or two. We may even sit and make a gingerbread house. These have been something my cousin Shell and I have made for a couple of years a while back. We used to make one every year in my dining room. We argued over how to frost the roof and do the windows and doors. I preferred to follow the picture on the box but she preferred to just do it. Shell would always tell me, “You’re not going to live in the damn house, just decorate it!” I never realized before the heaviness of her words.

She was right of course, I could never live inside our gingerbread houses yet it seemed each year that’s all I wanted to do. Perhaps it was the sweetly smell of cinnamon in the afternoon after school along with chocolate chip cookies placed on clean white plates. It was almost the simplicity of Christmas that I loved. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the presents too but I loved the way the air smelled of pine trees and ornaments locked away above the rafters. The smell of stocking and freshly baked gingerbread houses, the pumpkin pies and ribbons. Christmas just smells simple and amazing.

Perhaps I just grew up wishing to live in gingerbread houses watching holiday parades.