Growing Up & Getting Out

As you get older, you being to learn how your entire life is shaped by two things: lying and fate. The optimists are going to argue and the realists might also, as they might not be as spiritual as to allow fate to play such a part in their lives, but it's true nonetheless. I can prove it.

Backstory:
When I was about 12 years old, my mother went out to run an errand and told me to take a shower by the time she got back. Upon return, she asked if I had, in fact, showered. I said yes. She saw that nothing in the shower was wet, yelled at me for lying, and - in typical mother fashion - washed my mouth out with a bar of soap.

A few years after this, when I was in middle school, I was a miniature kleptomaniac. I'm sure I didn't know that word at the time, but the excitement of taking things like clock rings (remember those?), eyeshadows and plastic bracelets from Claire's or the CVS was my favorite. My mom would always see a new little accessory or something of the sort and ask where/when I got it. I always had an answer. I wonder if she ever knew. One day, I grew a conscience and decided to stop. My conscience has been growing ever since.

Most of my life, I have adopted honesty as my best policy to the point of fault. One day, the woman who put this outlook on me changed it.

About two or three years ago, I was at college and on the phone with my mom complaining about one boy or another. She revealed to me that sometimes she lies to her boyfriend! White lies, of course, but nonetheless deliberate lies! I was shocked. They are long distance, so she would tell him that she was going out with her girlfriends on a certain night, even though she wasn't, just to keep him wondering. My world was shaken. I started to learn that it is necessary to twist the truth sometimes for the sake of the game.

Fast forward to this past week at work. I learn a lesson from my boss which is to keep it short and simple. I, apparently, am too open and honest and do not need to be telling everyone the most intricate details of the process. I just need to deal with their concerns and make whatever they need come true.

I guess this is mostly just an observation but I think it is curious that the lessons that I'm learning as I grow up are mainly to lie. It keeps the sad people happy and the happy people happier.

As for fate, you just never know what is going to happen. And it all happens for a reason. Cause and effect. Action and reaction. And hindsight is 20/20. However, when you're "in it", regardless of what you believe about fate...I'm not sure it makes dealing with it any easier.

I think I'll start exercising. I have some aggression I need to get out.

Jillian (I'd Give My Heart) by Sharon den Adel

Apparently this is my song

I heard Ra Ra in the mall

Photo by Andrew Maury - on tour with Ra Ra Riot
Read about his travels

Yesterday I heard Ra Ra Riot for the first time in a store in the mall – Juicy to be exact, don't ask. And then a second time and third in Urban Outfitters. The first time I was just in shock and stopped the girl who was trying to ask if I needed any help finding a way-overpriced piece of clothing. I got a little emotional because the song of choice was "Ghost Under Rocks" and it made me think of John.

When I was in Urban, I happened to be on the phone with my best girl from SU that I miss terribly and I think I flipped out upon hearing it a second time and almost fell on the floor. The girl in the dressing room informed me that they get new albums in and just play the whole CD, which explains why a few minutes later yet another one of their songs came on...followed by two songs by a band called Illinois who live down the street from me. I ran into one of the guys in the Superfresh near my house a few weeks ago. They're apparently opening for The Kooks this Sunday in town.

My first site that I designed (that wasn't for myself) got put up yesterday. It's for a venue that's opening up in Syracuse super soon on Westcott Street. It's not fully developed, but you can see what it looks like here.

The weather is officially fall. I'm going to spend the weekend in town. I'm going to wear boots. This is my element.

Seventeen

I've been trying to push the restart button on my mind. Get my head back to how simple life was in high school. I used to be able to breathe easy. I used to be able to drive home at night when the weather was warm and hear the crickets, smell the fresh air, be happy and relaxed. I do my best to try to remember what that was like and bring my head back there.

Can't I just be that person again?

It's September 11, 2008.

Seven years ago, thousands of people died in a city that is now very close to my heart. At the time of the incident – when I was a sophomore in high school – I could never have guessed I would be where and who I am at this very moment.

I had no clue I was going to be a graphic designer and involved in the music industry, although if someone older & wiser had to make a prediction at the time I'm sure they might have made a fairly-accurate prediction. When I was little, I always told my mom I wanted to go to NYU and live in NYC for college. When this changed for me, I'm not sure but I never would have guessed that I would've spent a summer in NYC, living in the heart of the music and art community on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and having my life changed by it.

There was a buzz around the hall that day seven years ago. I was walking to lunch and someone mentioned something happening, but I don't think I paid much attention until I walked into the cafeteria and took a look at the news. Every television in the place was turned on and I happened to be in front of one just in time to see the second plane crash into the World Trade Center. I had no idea of the weight of what had happened. It honestly felt like I was watching some worst-case-scenario, armageddon-esque flick that should be starring Pierce Brosnan or Harrison Ford or some well-dressed hero, but things didn't really look as good as those actors do on screen that day.

Fifteen years old. What a simple age, if only I had known it then. My biggest issue was what my high school crush had said to me that day, which I relayed to the girls at the table in explicit detail on a daily basis. You can ask any of them now how tired they were of hearing about that guy, and each of them would probably still roll their eyes and laugh and how young and silly we were. And then they'd smile because we're all still equally as silly as we were at fifteen.

However, now in our early twenties, post-graduation (most of us), some now pregnant, some already mothers, some married, some dating and some still devesatingly single (cough cough), there is a change in our tone. We have all been through things that we could not have predicted would change us like they did. For me, it was a slow, yet abrupt disheartening and loss of hope in the world. I know it sounds totally depressing and emo, but it's true. And how people deal with this reality defines what type of person they will be in their adult life. At least that's how I see it.

I'm sure there were events prior to last summer, but the biggest change for me was when a friend of mine died tragically at the beginning of the summer of 2007. To be more specific, I had just moved to NYC (Williamsburg, to be exact) to spend my summer interning in the art department of Rolling Stone magazine and assisting the head booker at Pianos, a concert venue on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. I was sitting on my bed in my new room with no air conditioning and no blinds, talking to a friend via AIM when he told me that our friend was missing. I was a little confounded, because I didn't know how you could just lose a person. They were at a party, so I just figured he had left with someone or lost his cell phone – no big deal. Two days later, I was at dinner with my new roommate. We were relaxing and nourishing our bodies after having to deal with a Target trip in Brooklyn. Sidenote: for those of you who have never experienced the Flatbush, BK Target have no idea how much we take for granted being able to buy lots of things, large things in Target and being able to pull up your car or roll the cart to your car to load up. Suburbia, don't take these things for granted. Target in Brooklyn is hell. Anyway, we were sitting at dinner and I got a text from a friend from school telling me that they found his body. I was really confused by the wording because, as I said before, I was sure he'd turn up – no big deal. I went outside to call her and ask what she meant by finding his body. "You mean, they found him, right? He just went somewhere and lost his phone or something silly, right? What do you mean they found his body?"

"They found his body this morning," she said. "The police pulled it out from under seven feet of water in a bay near the house where he disappeared."

I was speechless. My new roommate settled up the bill and came outside to find me sitting on a curb with a blank look of disbelief, soon to turn into horror, soon to turn into complete sadness. She asked me if I was ok and I told her that my friend was found dead, emotionless. My body couldn't figure out how to feel. I have to note that this friend of mine was only a light friend. I wasn't terribly, horribly close with him, but he was in a network of friends wherein the impact was felt as a whole. And part of my sadness was felt for the type of person he was – one of the sweetest, kindest, funniest, most talented people ever to walk the planet. The kind of person you couldn't find a person to sad a bad thing about if you tried. Part of my sadness was for his family, for his bandmates who were also friends of mine, for his other friends who were closer to him than I...and part of my sadness was for the sheer injustice of it all.

I could tell you more about the events and effects surrounding his death, but I'm not telling everyone else's story – I'm telling my own.

That incident made me truly feel the delicacy of life. Since then, I've developed a fear of dying, which manifest into fears of lots of other things: flying, small spaces, fast things, etc. I've been experiencing a gradual disheartening of life, of people. The effects of this incident being paired with getting older and experiencing more disappointments of life really has a girl in a mentally bad spot. I often think back to the times where my point of view wasn't so dismal. I try to listen to music or immerse myself in the smells, tastes or places that bring me back to this happy spot. I try to remember that living in fear and unhappiness does not change my probability of living or dying at any given moment any more than when I was younger and had no idea these things existed. I try to stay positive and not dwell, but although these attempts result in momentary relief, they do not change the fact that my point of view is simply changed.

I had a dream last week that I was going to die on the 25th. I still can't remember exactly if the agent in my dream was referring to the current month, or to January, it's all still kind of unclear. Regardless, I had a dream wherein an agent was telling me that I was done here on the 24th and that it was time for me to move on on the 25th. In my dream, this agent was referring to my death. I remember feeling terribly upset, asking why it had to happen. Why couldn't I just live? And the agent insisted that it's how it had to be. I was upset and asked what I was supposed to do now that I knew this. The agent told me to enjoy the time I had left. Upon awakening, this was a blatant nightmare. It didn't bother me too much until later when I remembered the dream and got seriously scared that I was going to die on September 25th. I started looking online at general dream interpretation sites to find that dreams about death usually indicate life changes instead of actual death. This seemed to make sense to me as I had be interviewing for a job far away from my home and was to be flown down there soon for an in-person interview. The reality that I might be moving far from home on my own became more and more real and I was getting a little upset about possibly having to leave. I came to the conclusion that if I was being flown down the day I thought I was going to (which I did end up being flown down that day) and was offered a job on the spot, I'd be giving my two-weeks notice at my current job the next day, making my last day there Sept 24th...

Eerie? A little. It settled my mind for a little while, but the issue came up again last night and I got scared again. I did end up going down for the interview the hypothesized day, but I was not offered a job on the spot and still have yet to hear. My guess did not hold up completely and it has me back wondering about this dream.

So I got to thinking: if that is the case, what can I do now? I'm not the type for regrets. I live pretty ridiculously on a daily basis and have said everything to everyone I could possibly want to say up to this point, well almost. I did realize, however, that I have been telling people for months that I will one day write a memoir and everyone will want to read it because some things in my life are so ridiculous. This idea isn't completely appealing to me because I'm not pompous enough to think that my life is so much more entertaining than everyone else's in the entire world, although it does make for some great stories over drinks. In this situation, however, I know that if it was my time on September 25th, or anytime soon for that matter, I would want the contents of my head emptied out so that they weren't lost with my physical end. I don't assume people are interested in every little thing going through my brain, but I do think I have some things to say. I also hope that someone could draw something from my life at some point that might make their story ease on a little better. I feel mentally weighed down the last year or two. One of the only remedies is finding someone you know can relate. With my words type, saved and searchable, maybe it will be just the thing someone else needs to relate.

Regardless of the purpose or use
Regardless of if I die tonight, tomorrow, in 20, 50, or 70 years from now
These are my words. And that's that.