MARCH 26

THIS IS A BIRTHDAY POST!
It’s my insignificant birthday today. I’m 19 and I have 2 honest things to confess:
I wanted to be 18 forever.
and
My birthday feels like it was yesterday.
BUT IT’S OKAY 🙂
I’m still very happy it’s my b-day and all I really want to do right now is hop in the shower and then go to the beach. I think I’ll get my nails done and also pack for LA which I head off to tomorrow. I don’t have a pony, and I don’t have breakfast and I’m looking forward to BOTH.

Love ya,
The Birthday Girl

Don’t Forget Your Dancing Shoes!!

I’M HOOOME! For the weekend, it’s great. My dad and sis fly in from Boston this afternoon (should be here really soon, actually) But right now Rashell is picking me up and I CAN’T WAIT to see that girl…. honestly, I’m jumping around right now and I’m going to have to make this a super speedy post.

All I wanted to do is say I LOVE THE BAY, and also share with you this website that someone else shared with me. www.TED.com. It’s amazing, has thousands of speeches given by hundreds of amazing people about inspiring things. This one was, in my opinion, especially interesting and also a bit shorter than the rest: On letter writing.

SPRING BREAK BABY this one is going to be awesome. Already is and it’s only the second day 🙂 Enjoy the sunshine, babies… and if it’s cloudy just pretend you’re in paradise and don’t forget your dancing shoes!

I’m Here Because of Ashley, Too.

” There is one story in particularly that I’d like to leave you with today – a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King’s birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn’t. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.” ” (Transcript from a portion of Barack Obama’s Speech on Race)

 

And my latest thought is that “life” is a non-religious, eternal optimist’s name for what a Christian might call God…

• Life presents nothing but lessons, the hard part is figuring out what to learn from them,
• Life sometimes puts you between a rock and a hard place, but you have to keep faith that it will soon get better, and that it was all meant to happen.
• Life will give to you what you give to it; Be generous, kind, and patient and you will receive such a nature in return…
• When you need help, place your wishes into the universe with positivity and faith, and you shall receive whats best for you (even if it wasn’t what you thought you needed.)

These are my core values, and I’m discovering there is actually a faith based on such ideas.

Show The Love

Today a couple is celebrating their 83rd wedding anniversary, the longest a couple has ever been married in the entire world.  “They don’t have a magic formula to explain the success of their marriage. They just took seriously what they said to each other when they stood at the altar.  “You take your vows, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer,” Mayme said. “I guess you just stick to it, come what may.” “

I take marriage especially seriously (more seriously than most I’d say, even my sisters) because my parents were divorced.  I think one of the reasons divorce rates are so high is because vows seem to have lost their power in a certain sense.  The majority don’t take marriage as seriously as they used to.  Perhaps people lack a certain discipline to remember the promises they made and to work through difficulties.  I also think that people get married too early;  the human mind really becomes stable around the age of thirty.  This isn’t to say you can’t change as a person after 30, but most of the radical growth periods and learning curves have solidified to create the person that you will maintain.  When people marry at a young age without an understanding that they need to grow and learn with one another, sometimes they just grow apart. I never want a divorce.

 On another note, it’s my birthday in exactly one week!  I guess I’m excited, although it’s really not that big of a deal.  I’m a simple girl, I just want a few things for my birthday and you can’t buy them so just show me some love and I’m happy. 

I’m going home this weekend, bringing back my car… I’m stoked on it.  And I have a job at this adorable sandwich shop in SLO, right on Broad Street.  I can’t wait to see my little sister, my parents and my friends… stoked on grocery shopping, stoked for the Citizen Cope concert next week, Palm Desert… mmmm life’s about to get really good.

 

Woah-oh-oh Gravity

Written at 6 pm:

First of all, I know that the post below was quite boring, although entirely interesting. Was it easy yo tell that Nacirema is American backwards?…I just found it enlightening to read about ones own culture from the perspective of a cultural anthropologist. What we see as normal and every-day is actually pretty ridiculous when looked at through scientific context.

“I have deep faith that the principles of the universe will be beautiful and simple” -Einstein

Today I feel heavy, like gravity increased. Today gravity is working against me, trying to bring me down. It’s taking a lot of effort to keep my chin up, and I know that I’m often much too hard on myself but I can’t seem to help it. I’m almost certain that I won’t be able to sleep tonight. The problem may be that I’m trying to regain my footing too quickly, when all the situation needs is time. I have a difficult time accepting that a decision can untimately and, perhaps, permanantely close doors and alter dynamics. I desperately wish that wouldnt happen.

I’m convinced that if my sister were to see me in this state she would know, within 2 seconds, that I’m not okay. I havent stopped nervously fluttering about, nervously twirling the hair, tracing my hands with my fingers and the plethera of my other nervous habits.

Written at 8:22 am:

Today is a beautiful day. Cheerio’s set the mood, I’m trying to keep my chin up but sometimes it’s difficult when I don’t even notice that I lower it.  Usually my friends are the ones to call me out… it’s just another one of those quirky things that I do, but it sends the wrong body language to the world which is why i need to correct it.

I’m happy that my St. Patties Day was a bust. Home with Lauren this weekend, I can’t WAIT…. get me through get me through.