this i promise you

"If anyone should ask me to give a reason why

I loved my friend, there could only be one answer:

'Because he was he, and I was I.'"

you get left. you get abandoned. you get heart-broken, and soul-broken and mind-broken. your world is shattered and your little faith is floating farther and farther away from you. you feel alone. she broke her promise and she destroyed you and now what do you do?

you do the same thing to me. you push me out of your life. the only boy i've been able to fully trust in years, and you do the same thing to me that they all did. but it's different with you. you can hurt me, you can shove me out of your life - but i made you a promise that i am going to keep. i told you that I would never leave you. i told you that I would always be here for you. i told you that even if you tried to push me away I wouldn't go without a fight. you don't believe my promises now because of what she did, but giving up, i would just be proving myself to be like everyone else in your life. but i'm not like that.

so even though i'm feeling lost. even though i feel that i've been robbed by someone else's broken promise. even though i have days where i feel my foundation has been absolutely shaken and i'm scared to fall to pieces, i will always check my computer in the morning to make sure you've logged on to something, anything; to verify that you are still there and you are still breathing. i will not stop thinking about you or praying for you, or telling you that i love you and miss you. i'm going to keep messaging you and telling you that over and over because even if you don't write back, i know you are hearing it. and if you can know that there is still even one person in this world who has faith in you, even when you've lost all faith in yourself...maybe it might be enough to make a difference.

i promise to be your best friend, whether or not you continue to try and be mine. i will always care for you, i will always worry about you, and i will always be here for you if you ever do decide you want to talk.

"My friend, if I could give you one thing, I would wish for you

the ability to see yourself as [I] see you.

Then you would realize what a truly special person you are."

-B.A. Billingsley

Safe Zone

i'm training to be an ally at my school for underrepresented groups on campus...it's a branch off of the counseling department and i've been really excited about it for the past couple of weeks. but the training couldn't have been on a worse day. after the longest night of my life and running on a whole two hours of sleep, emotions were running high and i wasn't fully prepared for what i was about to encounter for the next four hours of my life.

it was pretty long, but interesting for the first three hours. then, we had to do this "activity" that they prepped us for by pretty much stating "this is intended to bring out emotion in you. if it's too much, you may leave the room for the remainder of the activity, but we would like you to try and stick it out if you can." great.

we had 16 squares of paper. on four, we were to write the names of four important people in our lives - mom, dad, nikko, emily - and put them in a pile. the next set of four were 4 roles we had as individuals - daughter, best friend, student, lifeguard. set number three was 4 material possessions that meant the most to us - computer, phone, navy bear, blanket. and the final pile was 4 activities that we do - studying, lifeguarding, helping others, and working out.

the people were a piece of cake for me to write down, but as i wrote them i had an ominous feeling about where this was leading - and if i was correct, it wasn't going to be a good ending to my night. roles and activities were pretty easy, but i had a really hard time thinking of materials. which i feel is typical of the person i consider myself to be; computer and phone were the last ones i added, on the basis that they are a means of communicating with people.

then we were ready to begin the actual exercise.

round #1 - sometimes you have complete control over what you lose in your life. choose one card from each pile, crumple it up and throw it into the middle of the room. that no longer exists in your life. out goes emily, lifeguard, blanket, and working out. my thoughts - "damn it, here it goes..."

round #2 - sometimes you only have a degree of control over what happens in your life. turn the piles over and pick a card at random from each deck, then crumple it up and throw it in the middle of the room. that no longer exists in your life. there goes dad, daughter, navy bear, lifeguarding. my thoughts - "i can't believe how real this feels. i don't want to go to round three." it was surprisingly realistic...turning the cards back over and finding out i'd thrown my dad into the center. i didn't really care about the other piles...only the one with the people. i could feel a surge of emotion...but most of it was centered around the two person cards i had left and what was about to happen.

round #3 - other times, you have absolutely no control over what happens in your life; it's out of your hands. you have no role in this round, rather the instructors will come around and take cards at random. those things no longer exist in your life. finally goes computer, mom, and nikko. my thoughts, "i don't want to be here anymore. nothing i have left has any importance to me." i lost it. i cried, it brings tears to my eyes recounting the feeling as i type. when you're already worried for someone's life...and you play a game where they are even symbolically taken from you, it doesn't leave you feeling even remotely ok.

i was left with my role as a best friend - but my best friend was gone. i was left with my role as a student and my activity of studying, but who cares when the big people you had to live for aren't there to support you anymore? my phone was still in my possessions...a phone that i use to communicate with the people who are far away from me who were no longer in existence in my life. helping others was still there, and I could still do that, but at the point...i would be the one desperately in need of help.

i don't ever want to feel what i felt that night. ever.

*sorry it's off-centered. i'm feeling too lethargic to figure out how to fix it, so you can just click on it if you really care that much. =P

declutter and shape-up!

that's what i'm making my brain do this weekend. i came home for a little mental holiday. i still have been working on homework like a mad woman, but i needed some peace and quiet and the opportunity to sort out some internal conflicts and reassess my attitude. i don't know how much progress i've made, but its nice to be laying in a big bed, my kitty sleeping at my feet, enjoying my new found love of OneRepublic, and not having to worry about waking up to an alarm in the morning.

i was guarding during a water polo tournament yesterday, and a group of special needs students from Cal Lu came to support our boys during the first game. they've been on my mind ever since - on breaks the announcer would play music and half of the group would dance with complete disregard for anyone who was watching. how beautiful to just be you and do what makes you smile - they sure made me smile. what a glorious thing it is to have even just a small moment of carefree being and experience such simple joy.

Pink spiders and douche bags

i really really dislike spiders...i would go so far as to say i most definitely have a mild phobia of them. they're so creepy and they bite and some of them are poisonous and really big...i just flat out don't like them. but i was wondering today, would i still be afraid of a spider if it turned fluffy and purple with pink hearts on it? or in less specific terms, if that spider's demeanor was different would i be ok sitting in a room with it watching it crawl across the wall?

the conclusion i reached was no, i wouldn't be ok with it. just because that spider looks different than it once did, it doesn't mean its no longer in its capabilities to internally be the creepy, crawly, gross thing that it was. just because its now fluffy and purple doesn't change the fact that it signifies fear to me and sends my body into full flight mode.

now although it wouldn't be out of character for me, i'm not really writing this blog about spiders. of course there is some outlandish symbolism in the spider and his outward appearance. but first you'll need some background...

i go to school with this guy who did some pretty bad damage to my relatively insecure and lost self last fall semester. given, it is partly my fault for having such a lack of judgement and weak morale at the time...but i've come a long way from there. but i REFUSE to take all the blame for the situation and the way it turned out. he took advantage of the point i was at in my life and used it to his benefit, leaving me more empty and alone than i had ever felt in my entire life. as i regained strength after the bulk of the ordeal, he continued to fight his way into my life like a weed that you simply cannot destroy. finally after being more curt and openly disgusted with him than i would ever like to be with anyone ever again...he sort of got the picture. at least it seems that way.

so anyway, said guy came up in conversation with one of my guy friends over dinner tonight. he tried to tell me that i should "give the guy some credit" because he is "trying to make changes in his life" by attending youth groups and campus religious activities, and that he may have learned from his mistakes. and you know what, good for him. i'm glad he's trying to make some changes because God knows he needed some. but i owe no amount of credit to that boy. sure i've forgiven and moved on, but it would be stupid of me to forget what he did. sure maybe he's soft and fluffy on the outside (no pun intended) now, just like the spider could be...but for my own sake i'm not going to pretend the old him never existed...the creepy, crawly, and gross him.

congratulations on the attempts at change, but i'm not stupid. enjoy your new life, but don't involve me in it. same goes for you spiders...not a fan!

Simple as Salt

"The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea." - Isak Dinesen

I wouldn't say "cure," maybe "temporary relief." like ibuprofen is the temporary relief for aches and pains and can be considered a "cure," as long as taken every four hours, these three salty entities can temporarily fix issues - particularly those that are emotional.

have you ever craved the beach? the sand, the breeze, the waves, the ocean, the scent and sound? maybe it's more vivid for me because that's where i've been blessed to grow up. but when i need to go somewhere to think, and think hard...i go to the beach. and somehow, the peacefulness of it all fills me up and pushes out whatever demons i may be dealing with...at least for the time that i'm there and the few short hours that the feeling lingers after i leave.

usually when i lose that peace, i turn to tears. sometimes there's nothing left to do other than let emotions take over and let your crying fill in when words are lost. and while a couple tears tumbling down cheeks don't mean anything less, the kind of crying i'm referring to is real, aching, heartbreaking crying that leaves you utterly exhausted and broken. once you get there, and you pour all that out...there's a "calm after the storm" period. usually. where you can sit in your despair and exhaustion, focused on just being.

from there, i workout. i don't remember when i turned into that person...the person who turns to fitness when life throws them for a loop. not to say i don't like to work out when everything's going great too, but it does become more of an importance when i'm feeling lost. Working out gives me something else to focus on...it gives my brain a break from the trauma and let's me just focus on pushing my body to fight through pain or desire to quit. maybe if i work on that, it will make me stronger on the inside too. the endorphins that follow let you keep that high for a few hours after too.

i've skipped the first one this time - just sweat and tears. i miss my ocean. i go back and forth...and right now, the tears just seem to be worse and the working out just seems to be wearing me out. i wish there really was a cure for hurt like this. but all of these things make life simpler, at least for a little while. and as long as i'm craving that simplicity...i will continue to rely on my temporary reliefs. unless something better comes along.

Selfishly Hurting

i'm afraid that i'm losing my best friend. and i can't stop it, or even slow it down.

it's like i can literally see our friendship plummeting head first into the ground.

i'm trying to help ease it along so that maybe the damage will be less, but i honestly don't know if i'm doing anything right.

for all i know, i could be making things worse.

i need a sign. i need some strength. this preoccupying thing isn't cutting it.

don't get me wrong, i'm so worried about him and all that he is struggling with internally. my last post still holds true. but i'm losing him. and i can't handle that. its not fair that she can destroy him, and then as a result of that, make me lose something that means the world to me too. he was my friend first...he saved me. you can't just let someone who's done that for you walk away. i don't want this hole in my heart again.

...and call me crazy, but didn't you once tell me you loved me? i'm sorry that that isn't enough...