daddy,

i wish you could understand the frustration i'm going through. its been a battle between my love for you and my own integrity. and after a life of absolute pain and confusion... i dont even know where to begin. you are the only thing in my life that ever made any sense and i dont understand how you can stand to turn your back on me like this. 

despite this, i would never turn my back on you. i wish you could understand. i have spent my life wondering what it all meant, and if it was worth anything at all, and if i belonged anywhere. to hear you say "dont contact me or my family" just really breaks my heart.

i have made my choices based on my own observations of myself and the world around me. i dont think that simply because i choose not to be the same religion as you, it makes it ok for you to stop speaking to me, or to forbid me from speaking to my brother.

you just dont understand at all and i think you are completely wrapped up in something you have invested a lot of time, money and spirit in. i can understand that. i just dont want to find out one day that you've died and i didn't even get to tell you that i love you.

when i was a little girl, i had some funny ideas about things. (i was a strange kid!) i remember having difficulty understanding money. once, i had a 5 dollar bill and a 1 dollar bill, and i remember asking my grandfather why both were a single "dollar" but one was worth more than the other. the significance of a printed number made no sense to me. even after he explained that because one had a 5 on it and the other had a 1, the 5 was worth more, it still didn't make sense to me. in my mind, it was the object that had value, not the idea attributed to it. i thought to myself, "well, if thats the case, then if i put a 5 on a piece of paper, why is it not worth more than any other paper?" it got me thinking. the value of things, these days it seems anyway, only amount to the significance that a society agrees it should have, not necessarily the actual value it may have to the society in terms of survival. 


there's a lot of misconceptions that we had as children. another one that i always find funny, is that i used to think that people only had babies when they got married. and i thought that the way they made one was through the kiss at the wedding. i couldn't see any other reason for the phrase "you may now kiss the bride." to me it meant that before they got married, you weren't allowed to kiss her. and ideally, traditionally, it kind of should be that way. i dont mean in terms of kissing, but in relationships, a child isn't really the right thing to bring into the world until one gets married. but you know, thats my own viewpoint. growing up, i had kind of a broken family. i lived with my mother, who by anyone's standards, would be considered out of this orbit crazy. when i was 8, my half brother was born, about a year after my mother remarried. and i didn't get along with the new husband either. just before high school, one of my close friends, lindsey, showed me what a real family was supposed to be like. i remember meeting her family and thinking "wow, this makes sense. i want this." she is a big part of the reason i changed so much between childhood and today. because she chose to be my friend, and stand by me, i was able to see the world in a different way, and recognize that not everything is as it should be, but that we can create a life worth living through our actions.


when we were children, our fears and goals were very different from what they are today. i can say that with certainty, and know that it applies to everyone. we each had our own ideas about what life was supposed to be like, what love was and what it wasn't. we all met difficult times and hardships with a sense of shock, because growing up those things dont invade our childhood. no matter what time in your life they did, prior to that, the world was a safe place where you couldn't be hurt or abandoned. and then we learn otherwise. we either learn to overcome it, or we succumb to defeat, walking through life like shadows. 


when i was little, i wanted to be a lot of things. the first thing i ever wanted to be was a mermaid. (lol!) and when i realized that it was pretty impossible, i cant say i wasn't disappointed, but i moved on, and decided that i wanted to be an artist. since then, i've thought i wanted to be many different things, a doctor, a math teacher, an actress to name a few. but in my heart, i'll always be that little girl, stretched out on the floor with a piece of paper and some watercolors or crayons, bringing my dreams to life in color.


what are some of the misconceptions that you had as a child? what did you want to be? how did your ideas change as you grew up? what was the turning point? let me know in the comments below!!


- noreen

i've been awake for way too long. i was super stressed out last night, some recent events have turned me upside-down, and i just wasnt able to fall asleep. by some weird mechanism, i am still awake and coherent. dont ask me how. i figured i might as well write what was on my mind while i'm up. 


i take a mass transit bus between new jersey and nyc to get to work, and on sunday evenings, going home, the line is usually RIDICULOUSLY long. and its sickening. that particular gate has been "under construction" for about 10 years now. there's still no air conditioning in there, and with all those people it gets super stuffy. and you know, when you're standing in a crowd like that, the last thing you want to do is try to shuffle your jacket off, so instead you just stand there, sweat bullets and curse the mass transit system. and by some strange coincidental karma, these are always the nights that i've had no sleep, i have no patience and i just want to go home, NOW. 


today was one of those nights. going on 40+ hours without sleep, wearing an insulated jacket (its freezing outside!) and carrying my large purse on one shoulder, i tried to keep myself occupied and keep my mind off the goddforsaken heat and lack of transportation by playing games on my blackberry and listening to music. i was lucky enough to be ahead of the flock tonight, and when i got to the gate there were only about 20 or so people in line, as a bus was just pulling out from the gate. in quite short order (i'm talking like 3 minutes here!) the line grew until it was coiled around within the limited space of the standing area, and spilling out through the back door. if i had to guess, i'd say there were at least 70 to 80 people there waiting for a bus. i felt like shooting someone. and to top it all off, i was tired and very cranky, my feet and back were protesting in pain. i played a few rounds of stockwars (a spin off of the old drugwars game) and quickly got bored. craning my neck around the masses of people to see if a bus was coming every few minutes, i really began to lose my patience after having been there already a half hour. 


finally, a bus arrives. the line ahead splits into the people getting on this particular bus or waiting for the next one (multiple bus lines pick up at the same gate, as they all begin their journey on the same route, splitting off later). it doesn't matter to me which bus i take, my stop is early enough in the ride that i can catch any one of them. as i'm passing some of the people, i hear a women complaining very loudly. she's standing in the line waiting for the next bus, and she's yelling at the people getting on the bus that's currently there. "the ride should be on the house, at least!" she shouts out. i felt like stopping, putting my face up to hers and going "what house, numbskull?? this is a city owned establishment, you think they're gonna give you a free ride because there's traffic!?!? because the bus that came isn't the one you wanted to take??!?" yeah i'm just as pissed off as she is that i waited that long for a bus, but am i going to complain about it to people who dont give a shit? NO.


her entire tone of voice just grated on me, it reminded me of my days as a waitress, and having to smile at people who would complain about a meal after they licked the plates clean just so they wouldn't have to pay for it. cheap, ungrateful, assholes. all the rage of the previous ten years, bottled up inside from nasty customers, bad tippers and idiot bosses bubbled up within me. and not a single person acknowledged her statement, because it was moronic, so what did she do? she repeated herself. the same phrase, 3 or 4 times. if the line hadn't moved onto the bus so quickly i would have decked her.


i wonder sometimes if common courtesy is a completely dead concept in todays day and age. back when i was living in the bronx, and taking the subway in and out of manhattan, i would see grown men sitting down while pregnant women and senior citizens struggled to stay on their feet through an hour long commute. it was just unbelievable. maybe my head is in the wrong place, but i think people ought to be a bit more courteous in their day to day lives. i mean, would it really kill you to give up your seat for 5 stops so a tired old lady can sit down? i dont think so. 


which brings up another question for me, when did chivalry die out? i open doors for people. men, women, children, old and young, it doesn't matter to me. if i'm not in a rush, then what could it hurt to be nice? and yet time and time again i witness people shoved aside so some prick can jam himself through a door for his very important, very entitled life. and what about picking up the check on a date? the way i see it is, whoever asked who out for the first date, should expect to pick up the check unless a prior agreement was a made. when i'm out with someone, no matter who asked who, or what the unspoken understanding may be, i always offer, and i always make sure i have money with me when i go out, just in case.

i mean honestly, what do you think? what's proper? is chivalry and common courtesy dead and gone? 

- noreen

i wanna talk about change, all kinds. i've just been thinking lately, about a lot of things actually, about how when we look back at our lives and we see how so much has changed, not just all around us, but within ourselves most especially. 


i know that i've changed dramatically, as a person, as a being, as a woman. when i was very young, my view of the world was endless. the things i didn't know about, i created in my mind to be what they should be. looking back, sometimes i feel that i set myself up for a huge disappointment, but lately i realize that that's how it should be. the reason that "adulthood" has become this stereotype of anxiety is because people have just decided to agree with it. they haven't made the choice to create what it should be. 


in school, when i learned about politics and environmentalism, there was one phrase that was repeated over and over and over again. "one person can make a difference." its true. if everyone believed they could make a difference, then we'd all be working together towards common goals. i honestly believe that people have the common purpose to be happy. its the choices we make towards those endeavors that take us down different paths, right or wrong. 


the other side of this is the fact that despite all this "change", if you really look closely, you might even find that nothing has changed at all, at the same time. i read a blog recently that stated that - everything changes and nothing changes. its almost true. but it got me thinking. everything changes in relation to the things that dont change and vice versa. its all in what we decide to change and what we decide needs to stay the same.


so, what do you want to change? what do you want to stay the same? let me know in the comments.


- noreen

so i'm being totally lazy and a shmuck. i know i said i would post a blog about the dc trip but i've been busy! i actually happened to pick up a couple design projects (after months of nothing!) so that's good. also looking for more work. i need to find something substantial soon. cleaned up a lot today - which was definitely needed! my room is by no means 100% yet, but i'm hoping to finish it either tonight or tomorrow. 


i'll try to post about the dc trip tonight!! (no promises though!) lol


- noreen