strange musings of a distracted spunk

A dark subject like depression has no place sitting pool-side, wearing an old blue and green bikini and soaking up the sun. There were no tears. There was no sitting around a table, drinking out of red glasses and hashing out my complicated history. It was a simple fact, laid bare for me to read on his lips.

“I think you’re depressed,” he said. “I think you’ve been depressed for a long time.”

Does the depression wear itself on my skin like a gaping wound, taunting anyone who dares come near? Or perhaps as I stand here, my skin opening like window shutters and exposing my vulnerabilities to anyone walking by. “Broken heart!” it exclaims on my right kneecap, whereas my left middle finger knuckle declares, “She doesn’t know what she wants!” My ribcage pulses out, “Daddy complex!” and my nose flibbers, “Have you found home yet?”

The first time depression called, she kept me up all night. I’d fall fleetingly asleep just before sunrise and nap fitfully, until my alarm went off. The vibrating disk under my head only made me want to throw my hands up in despair and call out of work. The second time she swept into my life, I wised to the ways of Tylenol PM. It might have only given me three to four hours straight, but that was three to four hours more than I was getting.

I’m not sure when she came calling again. It was subtle this time. I fell prey to her cliche, of the depressive that never gets out of bed. The one who sees the mess in the room but ignores it in favor of laying in bed. The one who when confronted with a family situation begins to feel itchy and out of her own skin. After just two hours with my extended family, an internal war waged.

Side A: They haven’t seen you in months! Indulge them! You don’t have to be social! Just nod your head and pay attention to the four babies!

Side B: Do you really want to pay attention to four babies or make conversation about things you don’t care about when you could be at home, in bed, with pajamas on and reading a book?

Side B won. Side B always wins these days. Side B spent a full two minutes trying to come up with a wish after her belated birthday candle was blown out by an enthusiastic two year old. Is a wish still effective if it’s made after the candle blows out? Had Side B or Side A even managed to declare a wish, this line of questioning might be more valid.

The last time I can so acutely remember feeling so tee-tot-ery was when I met an old coworker for dinner. After three years of working together and several more of being friends, he saw right through me. Perhaps I was as shaky as a drug addict in need of his next fix; except in my case, the addiction had no name. He said, “DS. Why don’t you take the bus back to New Jersey with me? I’ll drive you to your parents’ house.” Something about his voice, his course of action made me say okay. Maybe it was because he was more definite than I had ever felt.

I just wanted to get home that night, crawl into the bed that had been mine since I was fourteen. I had begun to develop an irrational dislike for tunnels, and that night we got stuck in the Lincoln Tunnel. Suddenly, I wanted to scream, fling myself off the bus, run through the tunnel, through the fumes of hundreds of cars marking the walls with their scent, back to open air. I wanted to shake people and cry and sob and list back and forth, because goddamnit, we were stuck in the fucking Lincoln Tunnel and I was going to die if I didn’t get some fresh air and breathe and why is he able to sleep next to me so calmly, as though we’re not all going to suffocate, and not even my ipod or furious fingers texting is going to save me. I had visions of the tunnel collapsing, of drowning and feeling so exhausted and being stuck on this damn bus and not being able to swim out to the surface.

Ironic for the girl who has no qualms about getting on a plane.

I couldn’t breathe. I began to hyperventilate. Tears began streaming down my face. I clicked through my ipod, looking for a song that might calm me down. I almost tapped him on the shoulder, to save me from myself, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that, to expose myself under such vulnerable conditions.

We emerged to a horrendous accident, and yet, I couldn’t bring myself to feel horror for anyone else but myself. Was it an anxiety attack? Or did depression just have me deep in her throes?

I’m a junkie waiting for her next fix, but I don’t know what my fix is anymore. I can sit by a pool in an old blue and green bikini and laugh and dive and splash, but I’m a stranger to my own skin. I can be in the presence of my family and love them for who they are, but I can’t stand a single minute of it. My bed is my prison and my home.

She’s back.

100. I’ve been a dancer for probably longer than I could walk.
99. My parents lost me one night and found me break dancing in a night club on vacation.
98. I was two and a half.
97. I used to do gymnastics too, as well as tennis, until my parents made me pick one activity. I chose dance.
96. Several years later, I ended up doing circus stunts at my sleepaway camp. See: aerial lyra, swinging trapeze, static trapeze, and spanish web.
95. I miss it. Sometimes I look up classes and contemplate running away with the circus.
94. I was a Mr. Rogers girl through and through. Sesame Street was kinda bull, though I did enjoy Big Bird goes to China. Relatively.
93. My childhood room was covered in Rainbow Brite memorabilia. I even have a t-shirt still that says “Sharing is caring.”
92. I also loved My Little Pony and the Smurfs. There used to be a show with animals who had the body of one and the head of another, and I can’t for the life remember the name of them, but I loved that one too.
91. I lost my virginity when I was 16.
90. It was more a sort of…I wonder what this is all about than it was wanting to be with someone I loved.
89. I’m a lefty.
88. I’m one of four lefties in both sides of my family.
87. Both of my grandfathers have red hair, blue eyes, and were born lefty. They both write recreationally, but were taught to write with their right hands. My mother is the only other lefty, but she’s brunette with hazel eyes. She didn’t write; she performed.
86. I wasn’t born deaf.
85. Neither was my sister.
84. But they at least have a strong suspicion why she lost her hearing. I’m just a medical anomaly.
83. We’re the only ones in our entire families.
82. I think my mom blames herself, while my dad blames some doctor he thinks misdiagnosed me.
81. I’m technically third generation American on one side, and first generation American on the other.
80. My dad was born in Israel. It’s made for interesting dynamics.
79. I tend to get bitten by the wanderlust bug often. I’ve traveled to Israel, Spain, Chicago, moved across country, and other places, all rather impulsively. I’ve also traveled to many other places, but those were less impulsive.
78. The first time I fully understood the Holocaust was when I was in fifth grade. It shocked me to realize that I would have been one of the first killed, for my coloring and for my poor vision and poor hearing.
77. It took me another year or two to realize almost all of my paternal grandparents’ relatives were killed in the Holocaust. Including my grandfather’s baby sister.
76. If there were ever one person I’d like to meet or bring back, I’d wish for her so my grandfather would have had her in the lonely years between her death and his next sibling. He might have had a childhood then.
75. I’ve only been in love once.
74. I still am.
73. My first best friend’s name was Ilana. She had a swimming pool in her backyard, and I wrote my first book about her.
72. She moved to Florida when I was five. I saw her again when I was sixteen, on a family trip.
71. Sometimes I think I’ve led a really easy life.
70. Other times, I think I’ve been put through more than most people have, and deserve a fine karmic break for the rest of my life.
69. It still destroys me every time my parents fight. It’s become easier now on this side of the country. I’m nervous to go home because I like not being in the middle anymore.
68. I was a commitment-phobe for the longest time, because I couldn’t imagine ever feeling passionate or interested enough in one person to want to be with them for the rest of my life. I also never wanted to inflict the kind of pain on my children, should I have them, that I experienced growing up.
67. I had a german shepherd named Gingi growing up. It means red in Hebrew.
66. My grandmother calls me gingi calavasa. I still don’t know what calavasa means.
65. My family stopped teaching me Hebrew when I lost my hearing.
64. Some doctor told my parents I’d be lucky if I ever spoke English, let alone Hebrew, and should be locked away so as to not burden my parents.
63. I’m glad they didn’t listen.
62. We used to go to special gala affairs at the New York Aquarium for the League of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.
61. I will always have a special fondness for the aquarium, even if it is much smaller now than I remember it being.
60. I still sleep with the teddy bear my dad brought back from Boston when I was seven.
59. But only on nights when I feel lonely and cold.
58. I’ve known Thailand since before we were born. I didn’t get much of a choice with him in terms of our friendship.
57. Our moms were each others’ bridesmaids, and we were born a month and a half apart. We’ve been more or less stuck together since then.
56. I’ve managed to sprain at least one ankle once a year, up until I was about twenty one. I’m hoping my streak is broken.
55. Once, I hobbled all over New York City with K as we wandered around, having sprained an ankle the day before.
54. I’ve also managed to step on a kickball and go flying in the air, sprain both ankles days apart, and jam a finger. All in the same summer.
54. Sometimes, I still wonder if there will ever be anything again with D.
53. My mom thought we were going to do a When Harry Met Sally.
52. So did I. We didn’t. And we won’t. But I still wonder anyway.
51. I can find traits of myself in all four of my grandparents, but more presently, in my grandfathers.
50. My paternal grandfather and I could be identical twins if we were the same age and the same gender.
49. We aren’t. So we just argue a lot.
48. I’ve fainted two times.
47. The first was when I was ten, and got a Hepatitis B vaccine.
46. The doctor gave me pretzels and M&Ms with orange juice upon my reawakening.
45. I still remember the taste of all three in my mouth. It was surprisingly pleasant.
44. I don’t recommend blacking out. Everything shrinks, and surprisingly, my hearing was the last to go, even though I could no longer see anything anymore. It was strange relying on my hearing rather than my sight. Then I woke up on the floor.
43. On the bright side, both times I fainted happened to be in a doctor’s presence. The second time, I happened to be volunteering in the ER at the local hospital.
42. I’ve been to the ER several times. Most recently for pneumonia. In the past, it’s involved sprained ankles, jammed fingers, as a volunteer EMT, and lots of x-rays.
41. The first house I lived in was a small row house in Brooklyn, in the middle of the block. We had an alley behind our house.
40. At the end of the alley, a friend of mine lived. He had a treehouse. I would often scale the chainlink fence and hop to the other side to play with him and his brother in the treehouse.
39. While we lived in said house, my sister dropped a radiator on my right foot during a game of hide and seek.
38. It didn’t break, but it was badly bruised. It still hurts when it rains. I was nine.
37. The second place we lived was a two family house across the street from a small park.
36. I never knew how small it was - my mom did the best she could to give us a proper home, despite the recent divorce she had just undergone.
35. It had two bathrooms, adjacent to one another. One black and one blue.
34. I cut my bangs once in the black bathroom, after thinking my hairstylist cut them unevenly.
33. I spent the rest of the summer with the most godawful curly bangs bouncing in front of my eyes.
32. That might explain why I didn’t cut my hair for another five years after that disastrous cut.
31. In high school, the girls sitting behind me would pull my corkscrew curls, just because they liked to watch my hair bounce. Our teacher would yell at them for disrupting the class, or at least mildly berate them.
30. I met Avocado in high school. She wasn’t my biggest fan when we first met.
29. That’s since changed. But we usually have one big fight a year.
28. The only song that can effectively make me cry is “The Trouble with Love Is,” by Kelly Clarkson.
27. I can’t explain why I can understand or hear music in ways that don’t make sense to most doctors.
26. Then again, I tend to come across as a medical mystery in all shapes and forms. When they do my autopsy, they’ll find I have three misshapen hearts, one highway of a vein connecting my body, four overclogged arteries of memories and unspoken thoughts, and one brain that segments itself between my right pinky toe, left knee, left rib cage, right clavicle, and parts in my head where it properly belongs.
25. I’ve been on and off writing a novella/novel for the last four years.
24. I don’t know if it’s going to go anywhere.
23. If I were to be a Disney character, I’d be a mix between Ariel and Belle, with a healthy dash of Abu thrown in. And perhaps a little bit of Rafiki.
22. One of my cousins told me tonight that she loves how I don’t ever express emotion. I laughed and thought, if she only knew about this blog.
21. Neither sides of my family adequately understand me. But at least my mom’s side tries.
20. Sometimes, I feel like I’m living a teenage rebellion now, even though I went through my rebellion phase when I was 12.
19. I volunteered with a first aid squad for two years.
18. While I was there, the guys nicknamed me jailbait. I was a bit of a tease. I ended up tied up and tossed in an empty garbage can by one of the guys who was frustrated with me, because I wouldn’t go anywhere with him. Luckily, Techny Besty pulled me back out.
17. What most of them didn’t know was I was sleeping with a 20 year old and a 26 year old when I was only seventeen. Both of them were on the squad.
16. I don’t know what I want to do or where I want to live anymore. I used to think I did. Now I feel like this country is too small, and they need to build a new city that is the perfect blend of New York, San Francisco, and Chicago.
15. Sometimes I think I will never speak to GDB ever again. And then I realize that I talk to K and D, who hurt me in a way I never thought I’d recover from.
14. I taught myself how to use power point, illustrator, and photoshop in high school, because I was bored.
13. I like teaching myself how to do things. I feel a sense of accomplishment. I’d often rather learn from a book than have someone else tell me how to do it.
12. I don’t think I’m sexy outside of the framework of someone else telling me I’m sexy. I think I’m cute, but I never considered myself sexy until GDB.
11. I don’t struggle from low self-esteem. But I do struggle with overanalyzing everything to death.
10. I tend to feel like a walking contradiction most days.
9. I’m strangely attracted to nerds. My house’s motto senior year was, “I date nerds.”
8. For the longest time, I thought something would eventually happen with one of my old housemates because we had so many sparks. I don’t think it will anymore. His girlfriend was one of my good friends our last year in college. If it weren’t for her, I do sometimes wonder if things would have played out differently. He’s since become a close confidant.
7. I’ve only been high once. I spent the entire time giggling at the three people attempting to paint one girl’s room, all high, as I sat on the bed in the middle falling over with laughter.
6. I learned my harshest lessons about friendship at the camp I went to for seven years. I think it’s one of the main reasons I knew myself so well by the time I got to high school. I had already experienced heartbreak at the hands of those I believed to be my friends the summer before.
5. I won’t ever want to live in the suburbs. But I’m grateful to my mom for moving us out to New Jersey so I saw how much of a world was outside of New York. I wonder if I would have developed such wanderlust if I hadn’t been so bored with New Jersey, and would have missed out on seeing so much of the world. If I do have kids, I’ll probably move to the suburbs for that very reason.
4. GDB was the first person I ever felt like I wanted to marry and start a family with. It won’t be him. But I still want that now someday. I never thought I’d ever say that.
3. I still remember most of the guys I’ve had one night stands with. Mostly because they had some special meaning, or came at a point in my life where it was needed.
2. I don’t regret anything I’ve done up to this point in my life. But I do wish things had happened differently in some cases.
1. I truly believe everything happens for a reason. I just hope to find what my reasons are.

Thank you for validating me. By telling me that I do at 50% what most people do at 100%. For telling me that you’re so confident in my ability to keep up with all the work you assign me, you want to give me more responsibility - that of event planning. Which is incidentally what my dream job, current degree-in-progress, and past experience all involve. Because dammit, I am kickass at getting all the details together and putting events on like nobody’s business. I know now that I needed the job from hell to get to here, to a place of positive reinforcement and actual work.

It might be 3 or 4 AM your time, yet you’ll still talk to me for hours on end. You’re there for me when I need an escape from my own brain, you pick up the phone on a Saturday night when I decide to look for Mrs. Field’s cookies at the local supermarket and fail, and you laugh at all my quirks. Thank you for all that, and for knowing me better than I know myself. Road trip? Yes?

You’ve been around longer than most people. We might be in the same state now, but there’s still quite a distance - and that’s okay. We’ve figured out how to keep our friendship burning bright and strong, when you were ten minutes away, or an ocean away. Also, since our lives are so ridiculously interconnected, you give me hope that if you can make it work, I can make it work. Funny how we always lean on each other, eh?

When I feel particularly crazy, I think of you, and realize how tame I am in comparison. You’re my brother from another mother, and when I need a crazy night out, you’re the man to call. Now come home already!

I’m not quite sure how I got so lucky as to find you in class one day - you sat across from me and laughed at me every time my pen cap flew across the room. Distractions and all, more than a year later, you’re one of my daily confidants. It’s so refreshing to not have to explain things to someone who knows it and has been there already. Whatever did happen to dancing Barbie?

Four years ago, I wanted to kill you for your bipolar nature. Now, I want to hug you for making me laugh when I wanted to chop off my boobs because they hurt and I was in a terribly bad mood. You even offered to marry me without boobs to save others from my “sparkling personality” (as long as I was rich and there was no prenup).

Whoever you are, epic boob girl, you send a ton of traffic my way. So…thanks?

You laughed at me when I told you that I might secretly want to be a wedding planner someday. Because I love details and putting things together and making one hell of an event at the end of it all. And maybe that’s why I’m watching all these wedding shows. Or maybe, it’s just because for the first time in my life, I really want to have a wedding. Thank you for not judging me on either of those, and promising that we’re going to have kick-ass weddings, even when you’ve been feeling all over the place yourself. Also, you got me started with this crazy blog world. I both blame you and will adore you forever.

A year ago, you broke me. It sounds dramatic, but I was at the lowest point of my life. Now? After telling me you never wanted to talk to me again? We talk semi-regularly. You may have been the single-most devastating blow I’ve ever experienced, but I know I will never suffer anything as traumatic and deep as I did with you. Simply, because you kicked me when I was already down. I won’t ever be down there again. Either way, there are no hard feelings. Only hard lessons.

You drive me crazy sometimes with your puns, corny jokes, and self-deprecating humor. But you’re still the big brother I never had. And the only person who tried to save me from what became the biggest lesson I’ve ever learned.

You don’t read this, and I probably won’t ever tell you, only because you get how I feel before I get how I feel. There’s no point in you reading something you already know, and if I ever did tell you this, you probably would be mildly curious and then say, “Yeah, but I know all this. If you want me to read something, I’ll read it for you. But that’s your personal space.” It still bothers me that we’re in this place right now, where future and present collides. But when I feel low, Gwen Stefani sings “I really hope we make it, do you think we’ll make it? We’re running, keep holding my hand, so we don’t get separated,” and I think she knows what she’s talking about. Thank you for making my heart leap when I only wanted to keep it buried under miles of jagged glass. No matter what happens, I won’t live with regret.

Seeing as it’s the last day of the year and all now, I suppose I should write the customary year in review. Because it really, truly has been one hell of a year. In some respects, I’m glad to see it go, but in others, I’m not. I would also like to apologize to my readers - my writing is nowhere near as stellar as it usually is, but I’ve not exactly been a mindset to work on making this blog a work of craft. Right now, I’m more of the trying to live life mindset than I am of the reflect and make a story of life mindset. I promise, I will return. I just don’t know when. Please bear with me until then.

And now - a recap!

January: I rang 2007 in with some of my best friends, from college and from high school alike. There was so much unknown, so much promise at the beginning of the year, and we were all there single - only one of us at that point was in a relationship, but there were no couples at the party, something for which I was incredibly grateful at that moment. As we stood by the window in my apartment on 1st and 19th, we heard the crowd chanting in Times Square and we cheered and hugged as we ushered in 2007. At that point, none of us knew how much would change for us in that year - all but one of us moved, and they were all significant changes in our lives.

The rest of the month was taken over by school and a failed beginning with someone who has now become a good friend and a great laughing partner. I had no way of knowing how many twists and turns my life would take in that one year alone.

February: D dropped the bombshell that I never thought I’d recover from. Pea in a Pod revealed herself to be much stronger and much more like me than I had ever realized. Our friendship was cemented by her response to the D bombshell, and our weekly dinners became a saving grace for me. Not to mention the support I received from all of my other friends when my world fell out from beneath me and I couldn’t understand why I still existed. I watched my legs move me through the days, but never quite followed how I got there.

March: More drama with D, who somehow infiltrated every aspect of my life. A spontaneous trip to Chicago with Jack of All Trades and my thesis life partner led to the beginning of my renewal. GDB followed soon thereafter and my world gets shaken up again, but this time for a connection so intense, we spend 20 hours together the first time we meet. The beginning of looking for a new apartment, and incredible apartment drama with the most passive-aggressive individual I had ever met. Luckily, I backed out before I made a commitment to living with her in Williamsburg.

April: My life is work, therapy, classes, the gym, and sometimes GDB. Therapy was part of what made me realize it was okay to not be a robot all the time. I was tired of feeling like my outside betrayed my inside, but I never quite realized that people found me cold and insensitive sometimes, because as cheery as I could be, my low expectations of life were obvious. A search for a new apartment yielded a new roommate and a lovely brownstone in Boro Park, one that I couldn’t wait to move into.

May: Apartment renovations, finals, moving, tense times with GDB, tense times with my parents moving from their home of nine years to a new one in an adult community, the beginning of wedding season ‘07, the singularly most explosive date I have ever had in my entire life - passion, anger, silliness, and intensity above all. With GDB, of course. Also - the first time D and I see each other in person and the revelation that yes. I can move on.

June: My 23rd birthday, GDB’s decision to move back to Chicago, our back and forth decisions on what to do in terms of us, because we were growing into an us, loving and living in Brooklyn once again, my roommate’s strange cat who I often fed and once had to find after the landlord’s cleaning lady let him out of the house during a rainstorm, my impulsive decision to move and quit school for a year. Thailand’s departure, nights with males who are incredibly influential and involved in my life but remain to be revealed for their true or ultimate nature. Wedding season takes over.

July: Wedding season in full force, a ridiculous PR writing class on Saturday mornings from 9-3 (killed my social life on Fridays), my very first wedding as a bridesmaid for my rwin, GDB’s departure (we said goodbye on four separate occasions - none stuck), GDB’s realization that he didn’t want to end things with me just yet, a breakdown in the bathroom at the Savage Men show in Atlantic City for my cousin’s bachelorette party because I only just realized how much I cared and wanted to be with GDB. Also - multiple job interviews for positions around the country, an offer from the literacy advocacy group that I accepted, breaking the news to my family that I was moving to California in less than a month, breaking the news to my incredible employer who gave me a second chance, after my depression made me unreliable and difficult to work with. Moving out of my apartment, in a rather memorable last hurrah with Pea in a Pod and a former coworker, a not so pleasant battle with the roommate because he had to move as well. We no longer speak.

August: A trip to Canada with friends for a Harry Potter convention (yes, I’m a geek, I admit it, but I didn’t dress up!), another wedding in which I wore blue this time for my cousin, and finally, my departure. My fears of leaving my family, my school, my friends behind manifested themselves in a ridiculous way - meanwhile, I was thrown several goodbye parties, GDB was behind me all the way, and Techny Besty and I renewed our friendship and made it impossibly stronger.

The move. A flight from Newark to Dallas, and from Dallas to Oakland before my first trip around San Francisco and being brought to the strange lady’s house. A week of searching, before a week in Utah where I met one of my closest friends in California today, and finally, the beginning of a new job. Full of hope, full of possibility, full of adventure. I had no way of knowing what was in store. Also - GDB becoming a calming and steadying force in my life. Finally being in the same time zone as Avocado again, but now being three hours behind everyone else. My watch remained on East Coast time, as it does today, so I would know what time it was at home.

September: Moving in with the family who took me in for a week to save me from the Strange Lady, finally finding an apartment of my own and furnishing it in one day through Ikea and free furniture on Craigslist. A second trip to Chicago, this time to see my friends from Israel, as well as GDB. The beginning of this blog.

October: The beginning of my realization that AmeriCorps isn’t quite right for me. Contact reestablished with D. Avocado comes to visit. My almost-mono fluke virus that bewildered me and my new doctor for a week. My growing frustration with the lack of support from the AmeriCorps community, and the first time I really miss home. The realization that I am falling in love with GDB.

November: My first attempt to quit my job. The highest highs of the year, with my friends, GDB, and the blog community now there for me. My return home, for the first time since I moved. The realization that GDB is falling in love with me, as well. Feeling on top of the world, in all aspects. Botched traveling and a layover in Chicago is changed to a layover in Denver, before becoming a direct flight back to San Francisco. Feeling like anything can happen, and I’m okay with that.

December: A week in L.A. where I was reminded of my deafness repeatedly, before I got to see my family that lives out there. GDB’s birthday, and subsequent alien attack. The first ending of our relationship. A last minute decision to fly home. Lost toiletries on my flight coming back from L.A. The realization that some people who I had never expected to be my support system had indeed become just that - questions about where it could go with them in the future. The renewal of some sort of relationship with GDB. A job offer. A job ending. Many meals out. A canceled flight and more travel chaos. Tons of family videos, traveling, last minute excursions, and not nearly enough sleep. Questions, unending certainty, and almost depression because my future has become so unclear now. There are no answers anymore. Just questions.

In a way, I’ve come full circle. But last year, when the world seemed so full of promise, when it was so bright and shiny and exciting, I feel incredibly removed from that. Now, I’m left wondering why exactly am I going back to Berkeley? There’s nothing left for me here, I’m certain on that, because I’ve never felt so dislocated in my life, but I don’t know how I will feel when I return back to California. I have no idea what’s in store for my future, and right now, I feel slightly cheated. Before, there were hints of sparkling memories in store, of a future with GDB, of impossibility becoming possible. Now, while I know the world lays at my feet, I wonder - are there too many possibilities? Are we just too accustomed to expecting everything that it makes it impossible for us to expect nothing?

I experienced my greatest relationship to date in 2007 - it may have been long distance for the last five months, but it was the most functional, the most real, and it showed me the capacity I have for loving someone else. It saddens me to know that I may not be able to do that anymore. This was the first year where I was ready to take on a stable relationship - though I did have several of my one-night encounters, as was par for the course all throughout college. I’m still great friends with most of them, but unless they were to become more than a several-night hookup, I don’t want to purse that sort of thing anymore. I realized I am so much stronger than I thought I was - I could pick up and move to a destination where I knew absolutely no one, make my way through hell and back, and still find myself walking into work to follow through on my commitment. Not to mention leaving my family behind and saying goodbye to my support network, most of whom reside somewhere on the east coast.

I wish I could say that I’m looking forward to 2008. But right now? I’m not even sure if I’m looking forward to waking up tomorrow. It’s just a hard end to what has been one hell of a year. If the last few days are any indication, I won’t wake up until at least noon. I’ll decide which one of the seven parties I’ve been invited to I want to attend (it seems impossible to me that anyone should desire my company with the current state I am in), and eventually head over.

I’ll watch the ball drop with others, drink my customary glass of champagne, send a few texts to a bunch of friends and GDB, and hope I fall asleep to a dreamless night, in anticipation of a more stable 2008. I think I’m ready for some stability in my life.

Edit: I spoke too soon. It’s 6:00 AM on New Year’s Eve, and I have not yet gone to sleep. Instead, the memories of a life I no longer have keep rushing through my head, and while I know I need to get rid of them to move onto a new year, my heart feels emptier. How can one’s heart say yes, while one’s head says no? There are so many words left unsaid, so many memories not yet experienced, and I feel broken in my uncertainty. My body doesn’t flutter right now, I’m lucky if I’ll resemble anything less than a zombie today. It seems I was in love all along - I just never knew it. Because I’ve never experienced anything this devastating.

At any rate, the new year begins in approximately 14 hours. Here’s hoping it rings in with some stability for a change.

Pros:

• Hugging. Do you know how long it’s been since I had a proper hug? Especially from Jack of All Trades and Wing - they’re king of big hugs. Wing does the whole pick-up-spin-around-break-my-back kinda hug. But it’s nice. They don’t do that kind of hugging out here in Berkeley. Not really.

• I now have jeans that fit! And I don’t need to wear a belt! And they give me a butt! *choir sings* I got two pairs of jeans and they are the perfect size and I love wearing clothes that show off how nice and fit I am. Mamacita gave me money to go shopping with. Jeans, sweaters, and camis. I’m in love.

• My mom’s side of the family. Only with them would my mom introduce a game designed for gambling and drinking around the dinner table over dessert. Full of questions, full of hugs, excitement lingered in the air that I was back. Funny pictures, tie-dyed cupcakes gone bad, cookies, stuffing, soup, turkey, everything delicious, well made and the company was fantastic. Of course there was a lot of “ds! Are you eating? You look too skinny.” I did lose about twenty pounds since before I left, but I haven’t lost any more - again, this was before I even moved. Intriguingly, GDB and I were talking about this last night. He asked me where I lost twenty pounds from, since he didn’t think I had anything to lose. While I know he meant that, it amuses me. He’s such a good boy sometimes.

• Speaking of which, there was not a single night we didn’t talk. This time, I was an hour ahead of him. And we would stay up until 3:30-4:30 AM, just talking. I accidentally killed his internet one night. Yet he still likes me. We texted back and forth multiple times throughout the days, he made me laugh when I was with my friends or by myself, and it was the first time I ever had a text waiting for me when I landed from someone I cared about. He wanted to know how my flight went. I don’t know what it is, but we seem to have finally gotten ourselves settled in. I don’t need romantic words to remind me how much he cares about me, but he gives me them anyway. Or he comments on how attracted he is to me, and implies a great number of things. I don’t know that I’ve ever been at this point in a relationship - content and settled. It’s like the smooth part of a roller coaster - previously, I’ve only been up and down.

• My friends. I got to see Techny Besty two nights in a row. Jack of All Trades made an appearance Thanksgiving morning, much to the surprise of my grandparents. My grandmother kept sneaking into my room to tell me how much she liked him, and how handsome he was, and are we dating? We get this question all the time, so it just made us laugh harder. I got to see most of my closest friends from college on Friday night, and there was lots of laughter, lots of story telling, lots of just being silly, and just wonderfulness and fizzy happy feelings. For the first time though, Thailand and Avocado weren’t there. And they were staples of every party I’ve ever had in my life. While they were missed, I know someday, they’ll be back in the fold. It was just nice to be around people who know me so well, I don’t really need to explain anything to them. There was a lot of making fun of me though. Mostly, because of my lack of domestic skills. “Who put a cookie in a bowl?” “ds. Who else?” “ds! Move that dish or it’ll break when you shut the dishwasher!” “ds…would you like a hand with that? Scooping chips out of a bowl with a spoon is not going to get you very far.”

• My cats! They make me giggle. And it was nice being able to cuddle up with something that purrs.

Cons:

• Somehow, my parents and my sister managed to get into a tremendous fight while I was home. My sister wasn’t feeling well and my dad being the hypochondriac he is, decided to take her to a walk-in clinic (where they failed to diagnose me with pneumonia three years ago), but wouldn’t shell out the cash for her to go when my mom wouldn’t give him her insurance information and decided she should stay home with my mom while he spent the rest of the day with me and his side of the family, so she wouldn’t get the babies and my grandparents sick. My mom said some nasty things to him, he replied back, my sister got upset about being banned from hanging out with his side of the family, and I was left picking up the pieces. I had to tell my dad to apologize to my sister, my mom needed to calm down and act like an adult, and my sister had no clue what was going on, only to take it out on me about six hours later. It was supposed to be a nice relaxing day, and instead, it led to me yelling at my dad, crying at his kitchen table, and wondering if my life is always going to be like this. How am I supposed to become a grown up when the grown ups around me are incapable of doing so? Or have I always been the grown up? And three months away just makes it easier to not be a grown up and be the whimsical twenty-three year old that I am?

• Once all that calmed down, we did make it to my aunt’s for dinner. Three months…and the only question I was asked was “Are you eating enough?” The big topic was my weight, which is exactly the same as it was when I left! Not a single question about my job, my apartment, if I’m meeting people, nothing. Where I wanted the questioning to almost stop on Thursday from my mom’s side, I wanted more than “What are you eating?” It just further reinforced the feeling of they just don’t give two sheets to the wind about me. I know they care, but they sure have a funny way of showing it. Instead, it was about the babies, and the wedding, and wedding pictures, and food, and small talk bullshit and I was just so ready to leave and go somewhere else. How is it that my family, who I’ve been a part of for so many years, could care so little about what I do with my life? I thought maybe things would change, but it wouldn’t.

• The worst part was my dad. I was looking forward to talking to him about all the difficulties with my job, but he spent so much of the day feeling contrite for what happened with my sister and wanting to please us desperately, that there was just no point. I may not agree with him, but I still want to be able to turn to him for advice. I used to be a Daddy’s girl - we would play games every Sunday morning, go to the library every Friday afternoon, and it was him I wanted when I had nightmares when I was younger. I don’t know when he became so self-absorbed, or so trivial. Maybe he always has been, and I was too close to ever see it. I never did tell him about my job. Or my apartment. Or GDB. Or about anything else important in my life. Instead, I just sat there and listened while his side of the family argued, while they were persistently stubborn and self-centered and ignorant. And again, I wonder, how on earth did my mother ever marry him? And why did she stay for so long? Most certainly not how I wanted to spend the day with my father.

Don’t get me wrong. I loved being home. I’m glad I got to see everyone. I know also I’m not ready to move back home. Why is it that we always start with the pros and end with the cons? I wish it were the other way around - then we could all end on a positive note. I’m happy. I’m glad to be back in Berkeley, with my small room and stove from the 40s and my claw foot bathtub. I’m happy to have GDB in my life, to have people who love me and care for me, no matter how strange a way they may show it - friends and family alike. I’m happy to have finally moved on from D, who I fully expected to hear from while i was at home, suggesting we get together. It’s only slightly amusing that he contacted me back when I was in my apartment, as though the distance made communication safer. Not that I have anything to say to him anymore. I’m even grateful for this job - I know what I can do, I know what I’m capable of, and I know what I deserve. Or what deserves me. This job isn’t it, and perhaps a new one will rise on my horizon soon.

But most of all? I’m thankful that despite everything that happened, between the changing flights and the fights, the hugs and the never-ending grudges, and the food (especially the food), I’m still smiling at the end of it all. It may have not been the perfect Thanksgiving holiday, but nonetheless, I’m still smiling.

And I get to do it all again in a month when I return back to NY for the holidays, a last minute decision made last night. Hopefully though, without the fights. And only two direct flights.

Some of the things that distract me. Which is not hard to do.

1. Girls who have junk in the trunk. And not a little. A lot. I don’t know what it is about big butts that fascinate me, but I LOVE them. I can stare at them alllll day. In fact, when I was in college, there was a girl who sat next to me or in front of me. I had many opportunities to view her amply endowed backside. I used to marvel at how she ever managed to get her jeans on, before realizing that you put the biggest part of the jeans on first so they never get stuck over your knees or your thighs and I would think pants-makers are absolutely brilliant for realizing this conceit.

Seriously though. She would sit down. And her pants would sit down. And the waist line of her pants were INCHES away from her actual waist. Because her butt was that big. The gap might as well have said “Mind the Gap” it was so damn big. And I just never understood how it was possible. This may be because my butt is small (read: nonexistent), so girls who have big butts are fascinating to me. I could stare at them all day just trying to figure out the mechanics of this.

2. Girls who don’t wear bras: On one memorable date with GDB over Memorial Day Weekend, we were listening to a jazz band in Washington Square Park and chatting with a squirrel. Yes. Both of us. Chatting with a squirrel. But that’s not the point. So anyhow. I noticed that there were many women walking around without bras. And wearing fitted shirts. What does this mean? It means nippleage! GDB and I then walked around and whenever we saw nipples, we would say “Hello Nipple!” It was part of our bonding experience.

Girls have the most fascinating nipples. I remember thinking when I saw a “performance” in East Village (Mo Pitkin’s anyone?) and one girl’s top came off, I thought, “Wow. Her nipples look like pencil erasers.” I was with D at the time, and I asked him if nippleage is different with each girl. For instance, I don’t think my nipples look like pencil erasers. But maybe they do. He gave me a funny look and refused to answer my question. So yes. When I see nippleage, I always think “Hello Nipple!” and then think of GDB.

3. Mohawks. I just think they’re really sexy. On the right person of course. I once saw a very hot cop standing on the corner of 6th avenue and West 3rd with a mohawk. I wanted to tell him how hot I thought he was, but thought it might be slightly inappropriate, and I didn’t know if there was some legal clause that would allow him to arrest me, so I opted not to.

GDB showed up one day wearing a fake mohawk. He didn’t know about my thing for mohawks. Needless to say, he soon found out. I’ve contemplated shaving my head so I could have a mohawk. But I kinda like how I look with hair. So that’s a no.

4. Butterflies. Oh boy. An ex of mine used to make fun of how easily distracted I was. He would call me spunky. And then he challenged me with “I bet if a butterfly flew by, you would follow it and say “Ooh! A butterfly!”

I told him no. That would not happen. I am not that easily distracted. Nope. No go sirree.

One day, walking back to my dorm, a butterfly flew by. And before I even realized what I was saying, I said, “Ooh! A butterfly!”

My friends have never let me live that down. Techny Betsy contemplated going as me last year by donning a wig and attaching butterflies that were just out of reach. Exactly.

5. Jessica Rabbit.

There’s a bit of a story here. I was changing and I happened to catch a glimpse of my body in the mirror. I noticed that my boobs go well past the span of my rib cage. (Yes, I have no butt, but quite remarkable boobs. Sometimes I feel like I’d do well as a playboy model because my boobs are nice and round and girls pay money for what I’ve got!) So I got to talking with a friend, let’s call her Best NYU Friend, and she referenced Jessica Rabbit. This works on so many levels, it’s not even funny.

So while I promised GDB that should we get to spend next Halloween together, I’d dress as Janet to his Rocky Horror (think gold shorts and a very sexy GDB), I’m now leaning towards a sequined red dress, purple evening gloves, high heels, and lots of leg and boob. Oh, boy would that be fun. I also decided to try a little experiment. Where I changed my gtalk status to “ds is Jessica Rabbit.” Just to see how quickly it would take him to respond to me.

Not even a minute. He signed in and immediately asked me, “Jessica Rabbit?” So I told him my theory about how my boobs span past my rib cage, how I’m curvy, and I’ve got red hair. He liked this idea. He liked the idea better when it involved the end of the night, dress coming off process. Also. How fun would it be to go around and say “I’m really not bad. I’m just drawn this way.”

Most people on the East Coast are asleep now, and it’s not something I’m used to yet. I’ve been here two months, and I’m not used to being one of the few people online at the end of the night. However, today has been a contemplative sort of day, where thoughts jumble in my mind and spike up at the most unexpected moments. It’s involved me having lengthy entertaining conversations of the philosophical sort on AIM, reading a book in its entirety, and more or less taking myself out of the real world. I haven’t exchanged words with a single person in California today, and I love it.

I discovered that my penchant for red grapes, but white wine, and complete aversion to raisins (they make me throw up) only highlight my contradictory nature. I chose to be candid in my statements with friends and let them into what my thought process has been. I thought about how October has been a bad month for me for the last three years. Last year, it was when my hyposomnia started, where I resorted to Tylenol PM to get through the night because I hated the idea of taking anything heavier and growing dependent. I have severe issues with dependency, as you can see - I not only fear it, I loathe it.

I was indulged in my bike humor, which I greatly appreciate. For the record, it’s still spending nights at my office. But that’s not where I am today. I finished reading a fourth installment of a series that I’ve come to adore over the last few years, and the protagonist is a college graduate looking for answers, hoping they’ll be given to her rather than having to develop her own. She gravitates towards something that has always provided the answers to her in the past, before being asked a tremendous question by that very same source. It’s only when she talks to the most unlikely sources of comfort that she gets a better sense of what she wants, but she still wishes for a clear-cut direction. I’m beginning to learn there are no clear cut answers - we just need to choose the lesser of two evils.

A few days ago, I got told some pretty harsh stuff from my boss. Things like, “We’re not sure how things are working out right now with you,” among other things. It hurt to hear that I moved across the country to do this and was now being asked to take a less proactive role; to wait for someone to give me something to do. I wanted to make a difference, change the world, be the idealistic 20-something we all have inside us at some point. As it is, my days consist of making one or two phone calls, sending out a few e-mails, maybe doing some research that takes all of an hour, and then idling away while reading blogs and chatting with friends online. It seems that the board is uncomfortable with me finding projects to occupy my time. Incidentally, the bitchy board member from a few weeks ago told my boss that she thinks she may have overreacted because I remind her of her daughter, and they’re going through issues. While it was nice to get a semi-apology, it still made me feel like I made the wrong decision.

I began questioning my motives, as I’ve been doing the last few weeks, and wondering if maybe I’m being feckless and irresponsible by choosing a job where I make barely enough to pay my rent and the bills, especially if I am generating so much controversy right now. As of now, I still don’t know. I’m willing to give it a shot, but not if it means I end up feeling useless and unhappy. I don’t think there’s ever a good enough reason to stay in a place that doesn’t make you happy.

I also had to decide whether or not I was ready to take my relationship with Gymnast-Drummer Boy to another level. We remain content in our unofficial official status, and a situation arose that would have contested what the limitations of our non-relationship is. I wasn’t ready to start asking those questions. In the past, I would have had other boys on hand to call when something wasn’t going right with the one I was with. It was never cheating, as the relationship was never official, but it was one way of keeping my feelings protected behind the wall that was raised years ago. I had the choice of having a friend visit, which would have been very clearly more than friends behavior, or not pushing the boundaries and seeing where things continue to grow. I chose to try the more “mature” thing and just deal with the feelings straight on without the complications of adding another relationship to the mix. GDB didn’t let me down. He continues to make me laugh, answers my pointless, meandering questions, tells me little inane details of his life that make me feel that I am getting to know him even better, and makes me feel like I am wanted, even when he is 1500 miles away.

What is it about where we are in our lives right now? It seems anything can change overnight, as I’ve learned in the past, but we’re so resistant to change. When we create expectations, they only get knocked down and it hurts that much more because we didn’t see it coming. I got the chance to talk to Techny Besty and Avocado simultaneously tonight (a hilarious and comforting exchange because we know each other so well, the jabs and teasing comments flew) and it occurred to me that we hadn’t been in the same place for at least a year. I honestly can’t remember the last time we all saw each other, and we realized that we may not see each other next until someone has a wedding. I never really thought about what happens when you graduate. People move away, try new things, fall in love, and so on. It makes me feel as though I missed a few steps on the ladder and while I watch people my age experience these things, I’m still scrambling for support that won’t come from the smooth siding. I don’t envy their happiness or success - I know it’ll come to me someday. It just amazes me how so many people find themselves so sure of the answers while I can’t get much further than deciding to have french toast for breakfast.

All in due time, I suppose.

I should explain what life’s been like for the last month. I moved to Berkeley for AC-Vista to work at WCR on August 13th. Said goodbye to most of my friends and all of my family in the days leading up to that. When asked where I was staying, I answered one of the members of WCR offered me a place to stay for three months, so I had a place that would be relatively close enough to the office, but would give me time to get my bearings.

Imagine my surprise (and my boss’s) when we discovered that there had been no drawers cleared out or closet space made in preparation for my arrival and supposed tenancy for the next three months. The next day, Strange Lady asked me if I had started looking for apartments. It doesn’t take much for me to get the hint - the lack of living space made it pretty clear. Plus, there was no internet, and I more or less can’t survive without internet. One of the perks of being deaf and in the technology age I suppose.

Over the next three weeks, I ate out every day, blew money I didn’t have because I was discouraged from bringing food back, and encouraged to eat her food (none of which I really liked). I also received comments on how two boxes of leftovers and a water bottle were taking up too much space in her refrigerator, but I should feel free to bring things home to her house. Contradictory much? To save money, I’d often only eat twice a day, unless I got lucky and was treated to lunch or dinner by one of my board members, in which case, I’d order something big enough to bring home so I could have food to eat the next day or so.

I can’t keep track of how many apartments I saw, and how many times I came close and got nothing. In the meantime, I more or less lived at Starbucks. I had to buy an internet pass there (it was the closest thing to Strange Lady’s house, which was all the way up in the hills), and by close I mean a 20-25 minute walk. I got to know the regulars at Starbucks - I wonder if Starbucks is the new Cheers…There could be a potential sitcom in the making…Anyhow, my methods of communication were restricted to when I was out of the house. I couldn’t tell most people how bad it really was because they’d yell at me for moving out to a place or tell me to do something drastic, but I couldn’t rely on my friends to help me out as much because I couldn’t talk to them when I came home. Instead, my nights revolved around watching DVDs, reading, and texting furiously with Gymnast-Drummer, Techny Besty, Jack of All Trades, and Avocado. These are the people who typically help me keep my sanity, though Gymnast-Drummer is relatively new. He’s a whole story unto itself.

Long story short. I got an apartment finally, and was told I could move in immediately. Then, when I was set to move, it all fell through because the manager thought I didn’t make enough money. Thanks AC-Vista. Poverty is what it’s all about, right?

So I was stuck back at the Strange Lady’s. And miserable. She made a comment about how it was unfortunate my parents weren’t more involved in the Jewish community, because then I could go to a temple and someone could take me in. (Gee, cause Hitler only killed 6 million of us - clearly we all know each other.) Incidentally, she also made a comment about had she known she would be taking another girl in, she would have never said I could stay. Thanks. How heartwarming. Can you feel the love?

Strange Lady offers to take me to see a room in a house the day after Labor Day. I have now been looking for apartments for three straight weeks and either being second choice or not getting it at all. And I have one failed attempt to add to my list. I haven’t stopped moving, I’ve been in Starbucks till closing most nights to avoid Strange Lady, and I’m still not eating well. I’m also now hiking 40 minutes each way up and down the hill to get to my job.

The room belonged to an incredibly sweet family who asked about my living situation and when they heard about my…non-traditional eating habits of late, they demanded I stay for dinner. I went out to talk to Strange Lady who said “Finally. I’ve been out here for 45 minutes. Five more minutes, I was coming in.” I could be wrong, but isn’t this the same person who has been trying to get me out of her house since the moment I more or less arrived? She left and I went back in, trying to keep it together when the family told me I was staying with them as a guest till they figured things out. I’m not afraid to say that I just started crying.

I stayed with them for just about a week. I hadn’t felt that relaxed since before I left New York. It was still temporary though, because it quickly became clear that the restrictions they follow in keeping Kosher would be too much for me. The apartment that fell through came back and I moved in this past Sunday. Miraculously, I was able to furnish it all in one day and everything was done. I’ve been wanting this for the last month now.

But now that I’m finally settled, I’m exhausted. I guess the last month of being on the go non-stop, looking for apartments, hiking up a tremendously steep hill, texting when I couldn’t speak, spending hours at Starbucks and eating junk food more often than I could eat food I actually liked takes a toll. I’m just happy to finally have a room again where I can put my pictures, my cards, my clothes!!! and actually know where everything is for a change. Living out of a suitcase is no fun. But on the other hand, my butt is in phenomenal shape from all that hiking. So I guess one good thing came out of it all.

That, and I never have to live with the Strange Lady ever again.