I Waved Goodbye to Yesterday as Tomorrow Took Me By the Hand

I was looking through old pictures of my parents back in the 80's, and then the 90's when my sister and I were born. There were some pictures that made me laugh, some pictures that made me remember, some pictures that made me want to cry. Sometimes I forget all the memories I've had with my family. Looking back, those days seem like another life, the girl I saw in the pictures wasn't me, I didn't recognize her. She was a small, delicate, boyish-looking girl and I noticed the way she smiled, like every day she fell in love with the world all over again. A new soul--not yet spoiled. Naive yet so oblivious, and all I could think was,

that use to be me.

The 1980's never seemed so sweet till that night. I wish I could've been a stranger passing my parents by on the street back then; young love, people would call it. Seeing them together, I imagine, would be something like magic. My mom was glowing, a young woman with a smile that was like meeting beautiful for the first time. There was a light to her, one that I have never had the chance to see for as long as I've been old enough to remember. Back then, she was free. And then there was my dad, so obviously in love, it was written all over his face. Scrawny and goofy but handsome in his own right, I could see he brought out something romantic in my mom, something that had been completely foreign to her until she met my dad.

And I wonder if I ruined it. If time ruined it.

I wonder if I grew up too fast. If I turned out to be what my parents always imagined their daughter to be. If they're still happy together, 25-years and 2 kids later. If in the end they'd say: I'd go back and do it all over again. If later on in the future I'd say the same. One of these days I'll have grown up into a woman and my childhood will seem even further away, my parents a little older every year, and I wonder how I'll find my way back to the beginning, to the place I grew up, to the people I have never stopped loving. But then again something tells me I will.

To mom and dad, for all the times you never gave up on me, I hope to be living proof that for the past seventeen years and all the years to come, your hard work and dedication raising me from a little girl to a young lady was and will never be in vain.

Songs of the Week

25 to Life- JoJo

Over-Drake

Fire- Lupe Fiasco

The Scientist- Coldplay

Kings and Queens- 30 Seconds to Mars

Quando Quando Quando- Michael Buble (feat. Nelly Furtado)

She Ain't My Girl- Trey Songz & Sammie

I'm Beaming- Lupe Fiasco

Enter Galactic- KiD CuDi

I Like People

I like people. They are pretty and smart and do nice things. They help me do my math homework. They go out to lunch with me on school days. They decorate my room with balloons and banners and surprise me. They hold my hand when we are walking close to one another. They make me fried rice late at night. They kiss me hello, and they kiss me good bye. They say funny things that make me laugh. They tell me they are proud of me when I work hard. They inspire me to pursue dreams I thought I could never achieve. They show me how to love. They make me feel less lonely. And when I hate the world and what it can do, they make me feel warm and fuzzy inside and the world is good again.

I Like People.

Life Liver

"Happiness is realizing nothing is too important." -Spanish writer Antonio Gala

So...I Disagree. In certain aspects of life this holds some kind of truth. But imagine if everyone in this world believed in order to be happy you just simply lived life as if nothing had urgency. You could never be a true lover, or a nurturing parent, or have an influence on humanity. And it bothers me because there are people in life who just "go with the flow" and go through every day smiling through it all, as if they were a robot. Where is the substance? Where is the passion? Because no, not everything is okay just the way it is. And no, whatever happens doesn't always just, happen. Life is meant to be complex and tangled and dimensional. Thinking simply is just a blanket. Something that's comfortable and easy. Unattached, empty, uninspired. How beautiful is it to be emotional, and vulnerable and hopeful. How rewarding is it to struggle and triumph? How incredible are human beings' ability to perceive intellect, and feel emotions deeper and more meaningful than any other species on this earth? I have hope for things. I build it up until it becomes the most important thing in the world. And I'm young, this is true, and I might be foolish and naive. But I will never waste my emotions by pretending they're not there. I put value and worth on something that I embrace with this ridiculous thing called my heart and I fight for it.

Now I'm just trying to draw the line between what's worth fighting for and what's not.

Beautiful Little Fool

For my language arts class we've been reading the novel The Great Gatsby and it's the first novel I've ever read that I've actually taken liking to. F. Scott Fitzgerald is a literary genius first and foremost. His insight is amazing. Something you inquire not through what he directly says in text but how he utilizes the characters and symbols in the story to perfectly personify each theme he's trying to convey. I adore his writing. Here's some quotes I wanted to take note of:

"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy--they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made....I shook hands with him; it seemed silly not to, for I felt suddenly as though I were talking to a child. Then he went into the jewelry store to buy a pearl necklace, rid of my provincial squeamishness forever."

"A bad driver is only safe until she meets another bad driver."

"If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away....It was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again."

"And I hope she'll be a fool--that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool."

To the Foolish and the Vulnerable (Everyone).

You were unwilling

To face what future will bring

The tide is building

and you're ready to push me away

I was waiting

the sunlight was fading

the words you were saying

was what I forced you to say

The look in your eyes

seemed to look past every heart

Forever young

but compassion comes with age

And that's where maturity starts

and these People,

they're just words on a page

In similar fonts

Objects and figures

of superficial wants

Or do you see them like I do

Emotions and beautiful tragedies

Stupid jokes and the ones who will laugh with me

Living poetry and depth perception

Contradiction and it's perfection

Let go of your years of immunity,

Let go of your fears of uncertainty

like yesterday's fart
Love is
Saving room to be vulnerable in your heart

I felt your desperation

And maybe I was left behind

Because I didn't want it enough

But all your aspirations

Compromised love's integrity

When push came to shove

Will you stop running?

And stand with me for a while

This place might feel lonely at first

But don't listen to them when they said you'd never smile

Unless you held on to something that wasn't even real

Because love is agile

Untamed and wild

Let it be free
Slow down

And stand with me

Because right now you might not understand

And right now you might not know

But together we'll make it okay to be alone