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a cliff or kindergarten

“Graduating from college sometimes feels like you walked off a cliff..and sometimes feels like you are starting all over, like you are reborn.  It really sucks, and its awesome.” – the great Shannon McCrea

A wonderful chat with one of my oldest and truly treasured best friends Shannon put me in a wonderful state of mind this evening.  Shannon is one of those people that can only be described as a treasure.  She is that special and full of endless joy.  She inspires me.  This girl is a UCLA graduate, in Sweden nannying, training for a marathon, practicing with a Swedish soccer team, in a Swedish choir, taking Swedish language classes, and still often thinks she should be doing more.  So besides kicking my complacency and procrastination in the ass whenever we get a chance to talk, she also always provides me with a valuable lesson as well.  Shannon has always felt like a second big sister to me.  I know sometimes I bug her, I know she’ll always love me anyways, and I have never (in 15 years) stopped learning from her.

Tonights lesson was to not take life too seriously.  It is easy to stress about post graduation or about your current state of “lost”.  What isn’t as easy is to recognize that while each day and each decision is important and should be made wisely, each day and each decision are also just that.  Just a day, just a decision.  One day, one decision can always be changed.  Always be made up.  I know this may seemingly contradict the whole “seize the day cuz you’ll never get it back” notion.  But that is not my purpose for I love the awareness that comes with that notion.  However, I also find that in order for us to be sane individuals we must learn that every single moment and choice we make does not define us.   We are more than one thing, one choice, one day.

 

My sister reminded me of this when I was taking a lot of heat from family members about deciding to get a tattoo.  I was starting to second guess the decision I had spent a year making when she told me, “Liz, some words  on your foot do not define you. Don’t worry about it so much.”

 

We all are constantly putting so much pressure on all of these decisions that we make.  If I get a tattoo will I be unemployed?  If I choose the wrong place to live after college will I never get a job? Will I be stuck there forever?

 

NO. NO. NO.   You can always change your mind.  Change your course.  Thus is the beauty of this world.  So my advice to myself from Shannon and Jess (my sisters) is to not take everything so damn seriously.  Just live.  Let life happen.

Fall off the cliff and embrace being in Kindergarten again.  Embrace starting over and know that you can do it more than once.

 

Most of the time loneliness, sadness, heart-wrenching longing for another place engulfs me like a large unexpected wave.  Or I should really say just like a large wave- a wave you see coming but underestimate or turn your back on just because.  In this way it hits me.  Sometimes I can see the signs. But I walk right into them anyway.  It hits me often at night.  Sometimes I think this is because of the time difference- as if my body knows that this is the time I would be eating dinner with my family.  But then I think- thats bullshit, my family never even really ate dinner at seven or anything.  It was usually more like 830, 9, 6 maybe.  Anytime you could in between practice, work, and school.  Simply I think it really is that just as the night brings a joyful mystery that I love, it can also bring a melancholy absence.  Absence of what… I don’t know.  Sometimes I don’t even really know what I’m actually sad about.  But I am thoughtful at night.  It is not uncommon for me to stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning occupying my mind with crap tv or movies just to fill it with anything but thoughts of the loved ones I long for.  The stars I long to be able to walk outside and see. The slobbery greetings I await from my dogs.  The fire that perfectly sparkles throughout my house.  The creaks in the floors and the obnoxious house fan.  The crisp air and the swaying of the tire swing in the wind.  Laying in the hallway so I could fall asleep to the sound of rain on the skylight outside my room.

Sometimes I want to do it all over again.  But I know that this is what holds its meaning, what empowers it to capture my emotions.  That I can never return to a time that I shared a room of two twin beds with my sister.  I can never return to a time when my brother would hog every tv in the house to play xbox live in multiple rooms with his friends.  A time when the dogs barking outside were yellow rather than black.  A time when I’d rejoice at getting to keep the change from my dad’s pocket in exchange for the fulfillment of my job as “head shoe untier”.  A time when my mom and I got to live out the plot of Gilmore Girls in a house all to ourselves.

I miss all of this.  I long for it often.  But I would not trade it.  Not even for the loneliness.  The loneliness keeps these memories alive.  It stores them in me always.  In that way I can learn to see the loneliness not so much as sad, but joyful.  My loneliness is a chance to rejoice in the amazing memories I have been privileged enough to live.  Loneliness is in disguise really.  It surrounds me with joy and engulfs me with love and reminders about how close I actually feel to this place, to these people that I call my own.

Body Image

“I was adopted.  The way I look at it there was nothing that I did to make my parents leave me.  I was an infant and there is nothing I could have done differently.  They didn’t love me.  Oppositely, there is nothing I did to make my adopted parents love me.  And from the beginning they have loved me for me, no matter what.  What I mean is people either love you or they don’t.  It has nothing to do with what you look like.  And when it comes to those who don’t– honestly just fuck em.  Worrying about the mirror or any of that doesn’t matter.  I see these women in magazines who pretend to be fit when they are super skinny and it makes me sick because they can’t do what you do.  And that’s why I always worry about women athletes because you can’t compare yourself to them.  Y’all live for your performance level and any girl in a magazine or wherever cannot come into this weight room or out on that field and do what y’all do.  Y’all are beautiful and anyone who thinks differently… fuck em.”

– An anonymous, awesome person in my life

For Kristen

I published some new posts today- all for you honey.  And since I did so solely based on your encouragement/ frustration that I haven’t posted in a while, I thought I would write a little something just for you.

She is made of warmth. Made of Kindness.  She lifts people off the ground and places them on her shoulders rather than on their feet. She takes people who are on their feet and brings them closer to the sky.  She spends her days burdened with the worries of others.  For this, sometimes she suffers, but hardly has she ever complained for the love in her heart seems endless.  She is not stopped by her own problems, never truly hindered, slowed down only to speed up again.  She cares.  She cares deeply and honestly about the lives of those around her.  About the issues of the day and of the past.  She betters herself and takes giant risks.  She tries to disguise it all for luck, for loneliness, as an escape.  But those who know her see past her great humility- a humility invisible to her.  Those who know her recognize her strength, her courage, her ability to jump straight into the deep end. Those who know her, love her.  Those who know her, look up to her.  Those who really know her even admire and idolize her.  I myself, worship her.

Kristen is my best friend and truly a member of my family.  I never would have expected her to come along so many years ago.  I’ve never really been someone who needed a lot of friends so I was quite content.  I had my family, I had Sarah and Shannon- all people I feel so blessed to still have in my life and who bring me the world’s joys.  But I have to say- now that it has been a solid eight or so years- that I would have been missing something had I not decided to stop in Cameron Park one day to see about making a new friend.  A lifelong one is what I made.

Thinking about that day reminds me more than anything that little decisions can be incredibly profound.  In that one ten minute decision I embarked upon the most rewarding friendship anyone could ask for. It’s one of the best choices I ever made.

Kristen, I am so incredibly proud of you for taking this risk and traveling.  You are so strong and so joyful. I, quite simply, love you.  I love you to the core, in the truest sense. Thanks for inviting me over eight years ago.

Senior Spring

Today was my first day of my last semester of college. This year will bring me much loss and discovery as many large chapters of my life come to a close, and new chapters (yet to be titled) replace them.  Come May and June, after playing and loving the sport for a grand total of 16 years, I will no longer play competitive softball.  I will no longer be a college student.  I will no longer be a student at all- only technically speaking of course. I will most likely no longer live in Charleston, South Carolina.

And with all of these changes coming, ends of decade long eras, I find comfort in the wise voices of others.   The voices of family, close friends, and teammates encouraging me and convincing me of the incredible journey ahead of me.

My friend Andra and I made lists for what our hopes and dreams are- and although they seem somewhat silly in their vast diversity it was nice to write down the many different things I want to do and know- really know- that I can do them all if I want.

A couple of loved ones have shared these quotes with me so I thought I would share them now. Both of them serve to remind me that you can always change your life. Impermanence is part of the beauty of this world and stressing about what I am going to do with my life is quite simply ridiculous since I am now beginning to hope that I will never really know the answer to that question.  

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters in the end.” -Ernest Hemingway

“Did you know, you can quit your job, you can leave university? You aren’t legally required to have a degree, it’s a social pressure and expectation, not the law, and no one is holding a gun to your head. You can sell your house, you can give up your apartment, you can even sell your vehicle, and your things that are mostly unnecessary. You can see the world on a minimum wage salary, despite the persisting myth, you do not need a high paying job. You can leave your friends (if they’re true friends they’ll forgive you, and you’ll still be friends) and make new ones on the road. You can leave your family. You can depart from your hometown, your country, your culture, and everything you know. You can sacrifice. You can give up your $5.00 a cup morning coffee, you can give up air conditioning, frequent consumption of new products. You can give up eating out at restaurants and prepare affordable meals at home, and eat the leftovers too, instead of throwing them away. You can give up cable TV, Internet even. This list is endless. You can sacrifice climbing up in the hierarchy of careers. You can buck tradition and others’ expectations of you. You can triumph over your fears, by conquering your mind. You can take risks. And most of all, you can travel. You just don’t want it enough. You want a degree or a well-paying job or to stay in your comfort zone more. This is fine, if it’s what your heart desires most, but please don’t envy me and tell me you can’t travel. You’re not in a famine, in a desert, in a third world country, with five malnourished children to feed. You probably live in a first world country. You have a roof over your head, and food on your plate. You probably own luxuries like a cellphone and a computer. You can afford the $3.00 a night guest houses of India, the $0.10 fresh baked breakfasts of Morocco, because if you can afford to live in a first world country, you can certainly afford to travel in third world countries, you can probably even afford to travel in a first world country. So please say to me, “I want to travel, but other things are more important to me and I’m putting them first”, not, “I’m dying to travel, but I can’t”, because I have yet to have someone say they can’t, who truly can’t. You can, however, only live once, and for me, the enrichment of the soul that comes from seeing the world is worth more than a degree that could bring me in a bigger paycheck, or material wealth, or pleasing society. Of course, you must choose for yourself, follow your heart’s truest desires, but know that you can travel, you’re only making excuses for why you can’t. And if it makes any difference, I have never met anyone who has quit their job, left school, given up their life at home, to see the world, and regretted it. None. Only people who have grown old and regretted never traveling, who have regretted focusing too much on money and superficial success, who have realized too late that there is so much more to living than this.”

What do I believe…

I just had a two hour conversation with one of my dear friends about religion.  More specifically the lack of it in my life and the great presence of it in hers.  Now I could sit here and write about all of the points that we argued, all of the ridiculous metaphors and analogies that we made to attempt to explain our side (the laughs that we shared over those), and the frustrations we both encountered trying to see eye to eye.  But I think the thing of greatest importance that I received from the conversation is that I am not right.  I am not correct.  No one is.

It is easy when we get into intense conversations to lean even further toward our side, whether that be left, right, backwards, forwards, green, or purple.  What is more challenging to do, and I think is the point that we both came to, is to realize that we are only right in terms of ourselves.  We each have our own truth, our own perspective, our own reality.  Consequences of our respective truths may bother, upset, or even infuriate the other, but as long as we each stay true to our own reality and fully accept one another for our choice to create, sustain, and thrive in it than all will be as it should ( unless of course the reality one creates is hateful- then we got a whole new set of problems).

In speaking of religion it is easy to say- you’re wrong.  that’s stupid. you don’t understand.  What is not as easy is to realize that the other is not wrong, only not a part of your truth.  And therein lies the beauty of faith and belief anyway…that it is not my friend’s, my neighbor’s, or my teammate’s decision, but my own to make on what is right and true in my world.

The problem of course comes when we choose to push our reality outward.  We feel the right, whether it be God given, backed by the church, or science proven, to announce our perspective as correct.  This is where I personally shy away from religion.  I don’t appreciate the idea that just because my truth is not backed by a book, or a church, or a specifically named God that I must praise for my blessings, that it is not as true.  Maybe I don’t need that.

It may seem silly, but I firmly believe that whatever people believe is true for them. Our perception, our ideals, and our beliefs create our world. This is what I know.  If I believe that behaving morally, acting kindly, and living well will bring me to a place of happiness after my life ends- and if I indeed do those things- then it will.

If my friend believes that following the word of the Bible and having a relationship with God will bring her to heaven- and she does indeed do so- then it will.

However, I strongly disagree with the sentiment that choosing to abide by my own truth rather than someone else’s is something to be looked down upon, thought of as wrong, or is lesser in anyway.  My faith is mine in every way and if I choose not to have every aspect of it defined that does not make it less strong than someone who defines every bit of theirs. My faith is mine and if I choose to leave it unnamed and unspoken that does not make it lesser than someone’s who’s is named and preached for the masses. My faith is mine only and just as a religious person would most likely not appreciate my pitying them for missing out on life without religion, I do not appreciate the notion that my life is lesser or missing something because I choose not to be affiliated with religion.  I choose to have a different relationship with my universe and I am confident and quite comfortable with that choice.

It is on this point that the conversation became truly interesting.  My friends asked whether I was afraid of going to hell and told me that according to my beliefs (or lack of), that I probably would (I just want to note that these are lovely people who by no means were telling me that I am going to hell- they were merely contributing to their argument which I felt very comfortable with).  At them saying this I began to laugh for I do not believe in Hell nor do I believe I would go if there is one- so this was quite a funny thing to me.  But I looked up at my friend and she was tearing up because to her the idea of my laughing about spending eternity burning in hell was horrifying and extremely upsetting, whereas for me it was mere comedy.

This got me thinking that for as much as I have felt judged by religious people for my lack of religion- I am maybe a little hypocritical because I am somewhat insensitive to the deep faith of my friends as well.

This was one of the main points of our conversation in which I realized there is no right answer.  There is only your answer, and that is the one that matters, and the one that should be respected to the utmost.

 

My love letter to Sarah Bennett

Hi Sarah Ruth,

You are the representation of everything I miss in this world.  There are a lot of people and things I miss. My family of course.  Shannon and Kris obviously. Scott.  The rest of our truly rare group of friends. Placerville Stars.  Pollock Pine trees.  TAHOE.  Morocco.

But when I think about what I miss the most, What I am really lacking in my life- it comes down to you.  You, who I hold so close to my heart are the one person, idea, momento, feeling that I miss the most greatly.  This has many factors.  One is that we are approaching the time I would normally see you, and much like the last time I should have seen you, these moments at home will come and go without me feeling your light.  Another reason is no doubt that I have no idea when the next time I see you will be nor can I really remember our last encounter because it was so long ago.  It also doesn’t help that you are physically further from me than ever before and we cant ever really talk.

But most of all I think it is what you represent and what you bring me that I miss so much.  You represent such a special aspect of home to me.  Both physically and metaphysically, if you will, you are home.  When I look at you I am easily transported back to countless moments of peace and joy in my life.  I am transported back to innocence, rebellion, and honesty. I am transported back to laughter and emotion.  It kind of makes it hard to look at your facebook these days without wanting to cry a little bit.

More so, whenever I am feeling ultra inspired, reading a book, my writing is on point, or I am feeling super creative in anyway I feel like I am channeling Sarah Bennett.  You my dear hold the great secrets of life in your every action. I know this is not something that you can easily see about yourself but I guarantee that anyone would agree with me.  In your every impending thought, incredible intention, and downright badass creation you make me and the world a better place.

I just wanted to write this cuz I went to your facebook and teared up and I just thought- damn I gotta tell that lady how much she means to me.  Not as eloquently as I would have liked but Sarah- I miss the shit out of you and I sure as hell cannot wait til I get to see and feel your truly amazing presence again.  Keep kicking ass.

I think of you everyday.

Compilation of my favorite مغربي pictures