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Unrequited

Posted on Jan 11th, 2008 by Yogi : Smarter than Your Average Bear Yogi
For some time now, I have realized that I am in love with my best friend. Which is quite a feat for me to admit.

I've known him for four years. He came into my life when I needed someone to be there and back me up when things were starting to turn horrible. He was someone I could turn to and simply just be. He was there for me when others weren't. When my three year relationship fell apart he was the first person I turned to. I knew that he would be there for me no matter what. And when I returned to the east coast, destroyed by a man who I had trusted for so long, he was standing there, with a bottle of vodka, just as I had requested. 

I stood by and watched him go through two relationships with the same girl, all while getting over my own horrible break up. I didn't see him as anything but my friend then. He was there for me when I needed someone and when his relationship fell apart, twice, I tried to be there for him as much as he had been there for me. 

It wasn't until I finally stopped thinking about my ex and started thinking about my best friend that I realized, not only was I over my last relationship but I was falling in love with my best friend.

He's funny, smart and gives me lip right back when I give it to him. He doesn't take my crap and yet lets me vent and blame him for things that he could never have done. He's perfect in every aspect accept one. He lives 3400 miles away from where I do now.

A year after meeting him, I transfered schools, from New England to California. He eventually graduated and this year I will too. While he's staying in New England (Mass) I'm staying in California. And the last thing I want to do is be in a long distance relationship. Especially when I'm never moving back to the East Coast, and he isn't exactly a 'change' kind of guy.

I've done the long distance thing. I got my heart broken because of it. I can't imagine finally being with him, and yet not being with him. He's everything I want in a man. He's the form I hold every other guy up to. Yet if it means, never getting hurt, I'd rather stay friends, never telling him how I feel. I'd rather never tell him than risk losing him. 

So for now, I'll stand by, holding every one up against him and hopefully one day I'll stop thinking about him because someone else has fallen into my life.
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Tagged with: love, life, friendship

What would make you feel better right now?

Posted on Jan 22nd, 2008 by Yogi : Smarter than Your Average Bear Yogi
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for January 20, 2008:

Honestly? A big ol' pint of really good ice cream that I could eat, without getting sick (I'm lactose intolerant) and wouldn't have any consequences from having eaten. Just some really good ice cream that I wouldn't ever have to feel guilty about. That would make me feel really good. MM MM MM :)
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Tagged with: QaR, hope, action, care

Leaving so soon?

Posted on Jan 22nd, 2008 by Yogi : Smarter than Your Average Bear Yogi
Lately I feel as though people have been dying far too often. When it comes to the early months of the year, I find that more people, both people that I know and people that I don't know, die. In the past two weeks alone, both a friend and two high profile celebrities, one of whom I liked very much, died suddenly. It’s been a bit of a shock, really.

When I was younger, I felt a great resentment towards January. In a two-year period, my family lost four members in January. It was as though those family members, who were ill to begin with, were holding out for one more year, to let that year pass them by, to see the other side of a year, before letting themselves go. When I was 12 I lost my grandmother. She was someone who was very close to me, and at the time I didn't really know how to handle it. Though my grandmother and my mother really didn't get along, even now, ten years later, my mother still has a little resentment towards her mother for never really knowing how much my mom loved her. It was really obvious to me, despite my young age that my grandmother was making up for her horrible relationship with her mother by having such a lovely one with me. There are times when I remember my grandmother's crappier side. But for the most part, I remember my grandmother as being a truly lovely person. She was kind to me, she would take me for weeks at a time. She loved her grandchildren with all of her heart. My cousin suffers from multiple sclerosis and she took him with her on a trip to Medugorje in the mid 1990s. I had never seen my cousin come back from a trip so enlightened. He has a lot of disabilities but she never babied him and never let anyone else do so either. One year and one week later, I lost my grandfather. One week after that, I lost my great grandmother.

In the past two years, every time my parents have gone on vacation in February someone has passed away while they were gone. Another family member passed away right as my parents returned home last year.

As I returned to school this semester, one of my friends committed suicide. He jumped off the balcony to his apartment, two days before beginning his final semester in college.

Last week, Brad Renfro died of a drug overdose and this afternoon, just three hours ago, Heath Ledger was found dead in New York City, they still aren't sure from what.

It seems that more and more people are passing away before their time. Though I know that when one dies, it is truly their time, it is difficult to accept it. Whether it’s a 21 year old boy takes his own life at school, or a 28 year old actor who was found in his own bedroom, the shock of death is never easy. I didn't know Brad Renfro, and I didn't know Heath Ledger, but the reality of young death doesn't sting any less.
 
It's hard to look around a classroom, seeing individuals my age and younger and not think, we're all so young, and yet, more and more young people are dying every day.

Last Thursday night, I sat in a room full of individuals were sat and mourned over the death of a friend. Our friend Scott had left us far too early. I watched his dad break down as friends told story upon story. His girlfriend barely held it together, and his closest friends didn't know what to do with themselves as each person stood and were trying very hard not to be angry with a friend who felt the need to leave.

I have never lost faith in the fact that God knows what he is doing. God knows when it is someone's time to leave. God knows when it is the right time to take away friends, lovers, grandparents, parents, siblings and children. Some people are only meant to live for a short amount of time. Some people are meant to live for decades. While I have had to watch too many people leave, I know that there is a higher plan out there. Sometimes, it’s just harder to understand than others.

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Tagged with: life, love, death, friends, family

If you were to create a retreat or retreat center, what would it

Posted on Jan 24th, 2008 by Yogi : Smarter than Your Average Bear Yogi
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for January 23, 2008:

If I were to create a retreat, I think I would want to have the best of everything for everyone. When I think "retreat" I think calming, relaxation and generally a place where you can go and not be disturbed. I would want to create a place where anyone could go to without having to worry that they could be walking into a place where they would be agitated.

There would be no rules like "no cell phones, no computers, no whatever" because that only stresses people out. Instead there would be areas for religious reflection - whatever your religion, Buddhism, Hindu, Judaism, Islam, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Catholic, the possibilities are endless. There would be a place where people could go and have spa treatments, nature hikes, horseback riding, and just areas that over look beautiful scenery with big comfy furniture that you can sit on a read a good book.

There would be a library filled with every kind of literature that you can take at your leisure (and back ups of each book in case the person down in room 315 has the book you wanted to read!) There would be a gym for the long stress relieving work out of running five miles on the treadmill, or climbing the endless stair master (or as my roommate class it, the stair monster), yoga classes, Pilate classes, and endless possibilities of others. 

Each room would be exactly the same so no matter what room you were in you wouldn't feel like you were getting screwed out of what so-and-so was getting down in room 315 (man that 315 is getting it all!). Each room would have a huge comfortable bed, a large bathroom with both a shower and a huge jacuzzi tub. A balcony with the most comfortable furniture you could sit on and just watch the sunset. A sitting area with comfy couches, a television and dvd player (because I hate when hotels don't have dvd players) and a fridge, because sometimes, dinner is too big and you need to have left overs for that 2am craving.

To me a retreat embodies everything you'd want in a perfectly relaxing vacation. It's like a resort, only better. It's a place you can go to have quiet religious reflection, or just to get the quiet solitude you need because you've lost someone dear to you, or you've suffered a life change you just weren't ready for. If I could create a retreat, it would be the kind that would alway be full, because everyone could find something about it that would make them happy. 
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Tagged with: QaR, hope, action, care

Express yourself!

Posted on Jan 25th, 2008 by Yogi : Smarter than Your Average Bear Yogi
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for January 25, 2008:

To be able to express myself in a better way. Though there are times when I can do it quite well, when I am afraid of the reaction I am going to receive, I don't express myself well at all. Or when I feel as though I am going to be hurt, taken advantage of or laughed at, I simply don't express anything. It's interesting since people often peg me as the 'opinionated, outspoken girl' but its often harder for me to be that when it involves someone I really know. 
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Tagged with: QaR, character, self, change, trait, quality

My First Nightmare

Posted on Jan 28th, 2008 by Yogi : Smarter than Your Average Bear Yogi
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for January 28, 2008:

My first memory is actually my first nightmare and its aftermath. I was probably about 4, maybe 3 and I had watched "ET" with my brother that day. That night when I went to bed, I had a terrible nightmare that ET was trying to attack me while I was in my family's car, after having been left there by my brother and dad, who went to go get gas.  After waking up, I went directly downstairs to my mom and sat with her in the kitchen freaking out about how crazy ET was (especially when he got sick and was white down by the river) and how he was trying to attack me, in the car, on the hill, by Pizza Hut.

I think what makes this memory stand out so significantly is the fact that I was frightened of ET for years afterwards. I didn't truly understand the movie, I didn't like watching the parts where ET became sick (I would hide my face for the parts where they showed the white ET) and even to this day I can recall every detail of that dream.

Leave it to me to have it be a nightmare!!
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Tagged with: QaR, memories, remembering, childhood

What you have done for me

Posted on Jan 29th, 2008 by Yogi : Smarter than Your Average Bear Yogi
When I joined this site, I did so solely because I was joining the scholarship pod. I needed (hell, I still need) money to finish college with and I found the site on another site for scholarships and I liked the essay questions. I liked the way it made me think. I didn’t really think I’d come back to the site much. Of course, little did I know this site would become a place where I would feel comfortable saying things I could barely say to my closest friends (and some things I would never say to my closest friends). I now find myself coming here everyday (more and more the longer I am a member of the site), answering questions and reflections, putting up my own blogs (something I never thought I’d do, become a regular blogger), filter through the books to find my favorite or see what others are reading to get new ideas and find new pods to be a part of. I haven’t really found my true part of this site yet. I don’t have “friends” on this site yet, or rather not many (I consider WonderAlli a friend, but she found me) and I don’t think I really take advantage of all the things the site has to offer.

I’ve read posts by others who are frightened that the new site look is ruining Zaadz. That they are frightened that their work will be stolen, that things will change. I can’t seem to join arguments like that. I haven’t been a member very long (7 months) and I just plain love this site. Every day the Q & Rs make me think about things that I would never have thought about before. They give me an insight to other people who I may never meet but love the way they think either way.

I’m in my very last semester in college, and I am terrified of what lies beyond. I’m entering an industry that, at the moment, is in the middle of a three month long stand still. Everyday I pray that the Producer’s Guild will old and the WGA will end their strike allowing everyone to go back to work, and those of us graduating from film school this year, hope that there will be jobs for us. I became a part of this website because I needed the money to finish school. While I still desperately hope that I am a recipient of that scholarship, I couldn’t be more thankful of having found this site, if only because each day I have a place to vent my feelings, find others who love the same things I do, and have a place where one hour a day I can avoid my homework.
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Tagged with: Zaadz, life, blogging

Depends on which ones..

Posted on Jan 29th, 2008 by Yogi : Smarter than Your Average Bear Yogi
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for January 29, 2008:

When it comes to the dreams you have at night, it depends on what kind of dream I had. If it was a weird, funky, why the hell did I have that(?!) dream, I often tell my best friend, Chelsea. Her and I lived together for three years and we used to wake up, look at each other and go "I just had the WEIRDEST dream!". I actually just had one the other night in which she was involved (her and I no longer live together) and I had to tell her the moment her and I spoke. I was truly bizarre. 

When it comes to my dreams and aspirations, few people know. My parents and those closest to me, know my plans for post graduation. But I'm not sure if anyone truly knows what I really want to do for the rest of my life. People know bits and pieces but no one really knows the whole story. That is for me alone, to dream about when I am alone, sitting on my balcony, staring out into a beautiful blue sky, or a beautiful sunset...over the ghetto.
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Tagged with: QaR, dream, sharing, wishes, purpose, dreaming

What does the weather right now remind you of?

Posted on Jan 31st, 2008 by Yogi : Smarter than Your Average Bear Yogi
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for January 30, 2008:

It's pretty chilly here in LA (for LA standards) but its really sunny out. It reminds me of those days we have back in ol' New Hampshire this time of the year when it's so crazy cold that you have to wear 20 million layers (long johns, long sleeve shirt, sweatshirt, really heavy winter coat, gloves, hat, scarf, boots, pants) and even though it looks really pretty out, its COLD AS HELL! And because it's so sunny, the snow is really reflective (and usually has a layer of ice on top o it at this point) and so you're freezing as you walk around the play group but you can't really do anything because the snow is frozen. And you don't want to swing and do anything because that causes wind which only makes it colder. So you all just stand together, in the sun, talking and trying to make yourself warmer. (Or when we were younger, lying on the ground because we knew that heat rises and we were trying to catch the heat before it left the ground :P )
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Tagged with: QaR, weather, memories, creativity, outdoors