Lending A Helping Hand (And A Caring Heart)

I watched the early coverage of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, occasionally wiping tears from my eyes and giving thanks for I would at least be in my own bed and have home cooked meals for spring break. Throughout Twitter, along with Facebook and commercials on television, I noticed a number that allowed you to donate money to the relief effort via text message. I really wanted to, but there's something about only donating money (especially through an electronic device) that kind of leaves me wary; how do the people know that their money is not simply being taken from them?

I have always enjoyed giving back to others, even though for most of my life I felt like I took more than I actually gave to anybody. I dabbled in volunteer work during high school, but that was mostly for the sake of college applications, and it was more like helping out and sporting and community events. 

I care a lot about other people, yet at the same time, tend to wake up feeling rather useless; To be specific, I feel like I don't do a whole lot of good things, as though absentmindedly it's been all about me for the last nineteen years or so. During my first semester, a part of me really wanted to get involved with Dance Marathon, an organization the raises money for kids with cancer and than at the end of February, hosts one big event where everyone stays up dancing for over twenty four hours straight. I wanted to help out at the local senior center. I wanted to be part of the March of Dimes walk for babies, given that I was a premature baby myself. I wanted to go on alternative spring break trip. 


But still I felt myself saying the same words: I'm too tired. I don't have time. I need to focus on school. 


The one time I feel like I actually did something for someone was back in eighth grade; It was a little after Hurricane Katrina hit, and a group of refugees would be coming to my hometown to stay in an old house for a little while, but it needed a little fixing up. So a bunch of us from my youth group at the time got together and basically gutted the place out (I carried a lot of boards and vaguely remember trying to kick down a wall...I don't know how well that worked out). 


The best thing about that was knowing that I was blessing someone, but not just by writing a check or making some kind of donation. Don't get me wrong, money is good; it helps organizations gather food, supplies, and other things they need for a particular cause. But I am a People Person, and often times I don't feel satisfied by just giving money. I want to interact with others. 


I realize that I sound like I am beating myself up, probably more than I need to. Over the years, I have seen that the greatest accomplishments we'll ever make in life are the ones that often we ourselves, and at times no one else will notice. I hate it when people say "I wish I had....." and so on and so forth, when there are millions out there that have close to absolutely nothing. Personally, doing this kind of stuff helps me to keep things in perspective and not to worry about trivial things. 


One shouldn't have to be a particular religion, ethnicity or gender in order to give; it's something that is Universal, and can be done in the smallest of ways. 


The greatest things we do in life are often the things that go unrecognized.

Then Vs. Now

Over spring break, I wrote a lot, probably more than I have written in the last few months. For my creative writing class I hammered out a nineteen-page fictional piece, while I also did some journaling and blogging. For some peculiar reason, I found the urge to go through my old journals that I keep buried in my closet. Maybe I wanted to relive some old, yet wonderful memories. Maybe I wanted to see how far I had come in life, being that it's been about five years since I began writing down my personal thoughts on a regular basis. Or maybe it was just for the hell of it. 


In the beginning, my penmanship wasn't the neatest and I often times just scribbled down every mundane thought that went through adolescent brain, from what I had for breakfast that particular morning or the amount of homework I had to do come nightfall. Page after page, I didn't find myself necessarily cringing at what I had written down, but rather chuckling at how niave and somewhat shallow I sounded. I think had I had actually been talking to my twelve and thirteen year-old self, I would have smirked and said, "child, you will one day learn that the next seven years are just all you living in one big bubble."


And that is something that I believe to be true, at least for me personally. In hindsight, I failed many times to actually look at the big picture as opposed to squinting painfully at the snapshot; I spent months, years even, making a huge deal about things that down the road no one will really care about. I pursued and tried to please certain people; and when that didn't work and I asked "why?" I failed to realize that they either didn't give a damn or we had grown apart. It's a jagged pill that's tough to swallow, but it's part of life. 


Simply put, I held on for way longer than I should have. That's why it took so long for the blisters to heal.


As I continued reading, I wept as well. I wasn't crying out of bitterness or regret, but rather because I missed the times that I had with the people who were in my life during that period. At the risk of sounding incredibly sentimental here, there are memories that are still crystal clear in my today as they were the moment each one of them took place. For instance, I still remember the day I met one of my very best friends, down to what the both of us were wearing. With others, it was singing along to a mix-tape at the top of our longs in my mom's suburban and than eating pie at the now bankrupt Baker's Square. These things that seem so insignificant, yet  also things that I'll probably remember forever. 


I don't miss high school or middle school all that much; I wouldn't necessarily go back to change anything that happened in those last seven years, but rather to change how I dealt with them. I could go on tangents about why it's best to just taking something for what it is and not rush or force it to happen. I could write a monologue about how plenty of friends will come in and out of your life, but the truest of those will always be standing in the doorway. But I don't need to, because they're just that simple. 


I know a lot of people say that those years tend to be the best years of your life; for some, this is true, but not everyone reaches their prime. I tend to think I've made more self-discoveries now I did then. 


My writing, as well as my character have definitely matured since then. These days I tend to treat my journal as more of a canvas, where I try to paint a picture with my words as opposed to just scribbling down random thoughts. I write letters to people that for some reason I haven't come up with the courage to send, or prayers to God. I've even begun using the way back pages to write down quotes that I frequently come up with. 


Reading through these old, somewhat worn out stacks of paper gave me an important lesson, despite the fact that I had put the books down for a week: Focus on what matters, and the rest will fall into place eventually.

What Faith Means To Me (Part 1)

In this past two years that I've had this blog, I have always sort of danced around the subject of religion and/or any kind of faith at all. If I'm able to reach that far back, I do know that I've mentioned God a few times in past entries, but never exactly to a large extent. 


Contrary to my not have mentioned it very much, I will say that I consider myself to have certain values and beliefs; yet there are times, especially right now, where I'm not quite sure what those beliefs and values are. 


I was raised Catholic for most of my childhood, but the closest I had ever felt to God was when I occasionally prayed at night, "God, if you do this or allow that to happen, I will be nice to my brother and sister for as long as I possibly can" (silly, but true). For a long time, God was just some invisible being that I went to when I wanted something. 


Then as I started my last year in middle school, I began attending a non-denominational church and youth group with my long-time neighbor (as well as oldest and one of my closest friends). If there's word that I could use to not only describe that time in my life, it was freeing. No, life wasn't exactly peachy; there was still a lot of baggage that I was carrying from the year before and it was tough trying to deal with it when I went back to school. But Tuesdays/Thursdays and Sundays were the days that I looked forward to the most; being surrounded by people that loved me exactly for who I was, and being in the presence of a God that loved me, was a safe haven of sorts. When I was there, I didn't have to put on a brave face like I often did at home or at school; it gave me a sense of peace and the kind of nourishment that I wasn't getting in either of those places. 


From eighth grade up until the end of my sophomore year in high school, I had a lot of beautiful, breath-taking experiences where I have felt overcome by the power of faith. Even today, I look back on it and wonder if I will ever experience those kinds of moments again. 


I did start going to a new church during the summer before my sophomore year, due to not feeling like I was really growing spiritually. I got involved with a weekly youth group and a Bible Study, and I thought the sermons were refreshing and uplifting. 


The following summer, I would have to walk through a storm where I really had no clue if God was even there. It left both me and the faith that I had grown in incredibly shaken, and in some ways was the catalyst  of me beginning to question what I believed in. That part will come later. 


It was a little bit after the fourth of July, and my best friend had pretty much disappeared. I wouldn't realize until later that it wasn't anything against me personally, but at time it was like a huge punch in the stomach. I can't say that I was outright angry at God for what was going on, but none of it made any sense. I was just coming to terms with the fact that this person wouldn't be a big part of my life for very much longer, and I wasn't even given the opportunity to say goodbye. 


The election of 2008 came around later in November; in my high school religion class, we were told that voting for Obama was a mortal sin because of the way he viewed abortion, and that homosexuality was a disease that needed to be treated. On the other side of things, it seems as though almost everyone at my church was hyping on conservatism, one way or the other. 


Now let me just make one thing clear here: I cannot stand politics; I understand that they're an important aspect of both national and global society, but I don't think I'll be able to fully grasp how it all works. Even more so, I hate that so many people tend to mix religion with politics now a days; that is definitely part of the reason why I haven't really been active in a church for the last two years or so. 


In turn, it made me ask myself not what I believed in, but why. Did I hold specific values in my heart because I genuinely believed them to be right, or was it because I was being told to do so every Sunday morning?


Both of those things made me feel so incredibly distant from my church family; I really did want to talk to someone about it, but I was extremely afraid to do so; I didn't want to hear that I was wrong in feeling the way I did, nor did I want to have Bible verses quoted at me in order to prove why I was wrong. 


I felt lost..


I did eventually tell my Mom, as well as confide in people outside of my church once I was comfortable enough with it. They were very patient about the whole thing. They listened. One girl who I used to be pretty close with at my old church (whom admittedly I miss very much) said to me "It's not my place to tell you whether you're right or wrong; we're all on a different journey of faith here." Her statement gave me peace and clarity; I no longer felt like a bad person for thinking the way I did. 


When I first got to college, I did put God and Christianity on the backburner; not in the sense that I was going out and living life a la Jersey Shore, but I was curious. Granted, thus far I have not done anything that has come with long-term consequences, but I did eventually hit a wall; it showed me that living that kind of life on a regular basis just doesn't work. 


I recently started attending a Bible Study through the Intervarsity organization on campus; It's a Christian group, but it also focuses on bringing together people of ethnic backgrounds, which I like. During one of the sessions, we began talking about the different ways that people viewed going to church. On one hand, going to church could be like standing in a court room, terrified out of your mind and feeling like you always have to defend yourself. On the other hand, it could feel like being in a hospital, where you go to be healed and you have people around you to love you and support you. 


I admit that for the longest time, I have viewed both God and church as being similar to a court room. 


I know deep down that I need God in my life; I've been through too much in my life to think that I can just exist and that's the end of it. 


I've realized how important it is to have values, and to surround yourself with people that have values as well. When it comes to being in a relationship, I want to be with someone that isn't constantly thinking about getting wasted on the weekends or sleeping around. If and when I do have a family of my own someday, I want to raise my children to know who God is and to wholeheartedly believe in Him. 


Yet right now, I can't say that I know where my faith stands; I still have a lot of questions and things that I constantly wonder about, which I will save for part 2. 


But I do know that I want to walk by faith..not by sight.

The Choices We Make

I remember a couple of months back when I first heard about one of the football players getting busted; It was shortly before finals took place and it was on somebody's Facebook status; at first I thought it was some kind of joke, at least until the next morning when I saw it on the front page of the school newspaper.


Honestly, I have a hard time wrapping my head around these things, much less forming an opinion about them. On one hand I thought, "well everybody does stupid stuff like that at some point. He's not perfect." But then when I read that he was one of the top players in our school's history and most likely heading toward an NFL career, my second thought was "what the hell was that guy thinking, risking a promising professional career and making a lot of money later in life, all for the sake of making a little extra money right now?"


Which in turn, comes down to the bigger question: How do you reconcile one not being perfect with the fact that there are some things a person should not do?


Not long after, I was sitting with my Mom at my sister's cheerleading competition and happen to be in the middle of a conversation that she was having with another person; at one point the person said "you have to think about what kind of daughter you're going to be, what kind of sister and friend you're going to be. You have to think about your character and how it will effect you later on in life." Now granted that was not directed at me, personally, but it definitely stood out to me in a way where I still remember it. 


There's a saying that one shouldn't really care about what other people think of them; I believe that to be true, but I do think there should be something added to it. Instead, it should say "you shouldn't care about how others think of you or see you if it makes you happy and makes a positive impact on your life. 


To a degree, you should care how other people see you: you should care that that picture of you on Facebook with a beer bong in your hand may or may not be the reason you get a job. You should care that cursing every other word really is a turn-off, especially if you do it for the sake of only doing so. And you should care about whether or not you respect yourself; by respecting yourself, you lead others in being able to give respect to you. 


And you should especially care if what you do could very well end up costing you your life.


I admit that I haven't always made the best decisions, both in college and in life. I've had to learn the hard way about what's good for me and what isn't. But in regards to my ability to stay grounded, I give a lot of credit to my parents. They constantly tell me that I am at school to get an education, and the rest is just icing on the cake. For some people my age, that may get annoying; but I personally find it as a powerful reminder that college is not a free-for-all. It's true that you get a lot more freedom when you go away and no longer live with your parents, but freedom is only freedom until you start abusing it. 


But that's not to say that one can avoid making mistakes entirely. Like it or not, you will stumble and fall at some point or another. And when that happens, all you can do is acknowledge what you did wrong, apologize to those you hurt, and move on. From that point, all you can do is make sure that something good comes out of it.


Which leads into questions about role models and what makes a person a role model. However, I am leaving that for a different day. 


I do not write about all of the above in the sense that I am better than everyone else. I don't go around telling people how to live their lives, especially if I myself don't live up to those values. I am only reiterating what I have learned, and how I am applying that to my own life. 


Everything you do has a consequence; it can be something that's good and lifts you up, or something bad that ultimately brings you down. Either way, there is no going back afterward.

Stream of Consciousness #8

I just finished with my Meaning of Life (Philosophy) midterm a couple of hours ago; surprisingly enough, I did not go into a panic, nor did I blank out on anything. It was the first time I realized just how good skipping out on certain weekend activities can be, especially when I have a huge test approaching. Instead, I saw Tangled with two of my best friends (one Thursday night and one Friday night) with study sessions in between. Personally, it's one of the best Disney movies that I've seen in a long time; it makes me feel somewhat sad, considering it's the last princess movie (apparently they're struggling with knowing what age group to market the movie to, and they're running out of ideas. Umm...how about a Snow White or Sleeping Beauty sequel? Or maybe they've noticed how sequels really aren't that good these days).


Now it's on to conquering Spanish...


In my last post I wrote about things that I have been struggling with personally during the last three or four months; I can't say that I've been the best at it, but I finally got to writing a lot of things down in my personal journal; things that I would never go into such detail about on this blog. It was liberating, finally being able to admit to certain happens or feeling a certain way about something. I used to think just writing something down never helped and that I always had to talk to someone about it. Yet, when you really don't know how to talk about it, what do you do exactly?


Not only did I feel liberated, but I also felt at peace; I had formally acknowledged aspects about myself that pushed away for a long time, as well as how I was feeling about some specific situations. No, not that my life sucks, because that's not true. I've just been a little stressed for quite some time and I've never been all that good at coping with it, more so coping with it in a healthy way.


Right now it's figuring out how to deal with various, shall I say predicaments, that have been going on for the past few months. I've realized that maybe it's best to put them on the backburner for now, only because I really do need to focus on school and doing well in my classes. It's very frustrating, knowing what I want to do in regards to those situations and knowing what needs to be done, at least for right now. The hardest part is not only putting specific things out of my mind for a period of time, but making sure that they don't have a negative effect on what I need to be focusing on.


One day at a time, I keep telling myself One day at a time...

Chances Are....

Disclaimer: This post is rather long, raw and deep. I am saying a lot of things that I've kept quiet about for quite some time. If you don't think you can take any of that, it would be best to stop reading. 


My back ached from sitting in my desk chair for so long, yet I couldn't move away from the current conversation. I read the words in the tiny little message box, quickly typing in "oh my gosh! I'm so sorry!" before hitting the send button and sitting back to absorb what she had just told me.

 I couldn't keep the tears from spilling over; it was partially from knowing that my dear friend had been in so much pain for years, yet I hadn't the faintest idea up until that point. It was from discovering that I was not the only one (at least of all the people that I knew) who had been through that type of thing.


And it was also because I was finally being completely and one hundred percent honest with someone; not only did I tell her what I had been feeling over these last couple of weeks, but how the difficult times that I had experienced in the past related to those feelings.


I have made no secret of the fact that I have the hardest time opening up to the people around me, especially now that I'm moving into adulthood. I rarely ever talk about things that have happened either before or during high school; I personally feel that there would be little to no point in discussing those things, and they're therefore redundant.


Yet they still tend to creep right back up on me; maybe not in conversation, maybe not necessarily straight in the face; but emotionally, they most certainly do.


From a certain point of view, one could ask what exactly is so hard about going to someone and simply saying "I need to talk"?


Number one, I see myself as a very strong an independent person; if I break down and tell someone about what I've been dealing with or how I feel about a specific situation, I'll be viewed as the kind of person who is both needy as well as high maintinence. If there's one thing I don't want to do, it's to become emotionally dependent upon anyone.


Number two, there is no telling what kind of reaction a particular person will have; I once confided in a friend (or at least he used to be) about drinking. He accused me of trying to impress him. There have also been others that I have tried to talk to about various things, but in the end have felt more lost and alone than I did previously. No one wants to be told (especially in a vulnerable state) that they're full of shit and/or are wrong to feel a certain way. 


There are times when a person wants anything but advice. They just want another to listen to what they have to say. To hold them. To know that someone else cares enough to do those kinds of things for them. 


It's easy to say that if the listener (or should I say desired listener) has a negative reaction and ultimately leaves you in the dust, than they're obviously not a good friend and should not be in your life. But than there is a part of you that constantly wonders if you could have very well told them too early on in the friendship, or if the information was something that you should not have said at all. 


I met a couple of people back at the beginning of the year whom I thought were going to be my best friends. One of them I hung out with pretty frequently, especially on the first two weekends when sorority rush was happening and I was not allowed to go out. We spent a lot of time talking; I think I told this person more than I have ever told anyone in the span of two weeks. This person was incredibly easy-going and I really didn't have any concern with making myself vulnerable around them. 


Out of nowhere, they began to act differently around me; now that I look back on it, they most likely were only there for me when it was convenient for them or when they benefited from it; and I'm saying such things because if neither were true, I believe we would still be friends right now. 


It's occurances like that that make you wonder, could I have done things differently? Maybe had I waited a little bit to talk about that kind of stuff, I wouldn't have drowned a seed that had yet to experience a whole lot of growth. 


In reality, any kind of lasting friendship or relationship takes time; you can't rush hanging out with someone or having deep conversations with them. You can't force any of it. You just have to let it happen when it happens. 


I want so badly to be authentic; not just on this blog, but in real life too. There are a few specific people that I've met, that I would like nothing more than to completely spill my guts to; heck, there have been times when I've come pretty close to doing so (notice the long pause in the middle of a conversation and you'll realize that I'm debating about it). The same goes for my family. It's not necessarily all about my troubles, but also about my hopes, dreams, ambitions, etc. I want to share my heart.


But I am downright terrified. 


I'm just so damn tired of being superficial; of saying some words out loud but the rest stay silent. That is why I write on this blog; I do not see myself as being particularly good at personally speaking about how I feel. Instead, I write; writing is the voice for the words that won't come out of my mouth. 


Our culture says that it's everybody for themselves out there; if you're not the last one standing, well than you're SOL. It seems like young people are especially raised to see it that way. That no one else will never understand what they've seen, done or heard because no one else has walked in their shoes. 


That is true to a degree: each of us is on a different journey, and we've all had different experiences. Yet at one point or another, we have all felt pain, loss, hopelessness and have to deal with hardship. We have all cried and ached. We have all stumbled and fallen. 


We have all lived. 


So instead of hurting others and trying to "survive", why not help each other instead?


My point is, you never know just how much you can relate to someone unless you talk to them. Like my friend that I mentioned above, you can have easily gone through the same crap, only at different times. 


Chances are, the ones we admire the most are struggling just as much, if not more than us


Chances are, the person you least expect to feel down and out might just need someone to talk to. 


Chances are, you could be saving someone's life, or vice versa. 


So why not take a chance?