one day we are young...and by the next one we are old...

just $2300 worth of books, no big deal.
my very, very awesome white new balances for clinicals...awesome, i know.

my life is different these days. well for the past 2 1/2 months worth of days it has been..and it will continue in the current season of different for 9 1/2 more months. that sounds long; however, i realize it is just as short as my hair seemed to be when i was in fourth grade and cut it off so i would look like the girl from wilson phillips. very, very short. i started nursing school in may, something i've been working towards for a long time now. i miss the past six years of my life being in the hospital with the kids. i suppose i didn't really understand how much they impacted me everyday. their joy, their bravery, their enthusiasm, their lack of judgment or prejudices. i knew it changed me..i knew it made me feel the texture of life a little more accurately...i miss it so much...i miss the people i worked with everyday...i miss the privledge of helping people get through some of the most daunting, vulnerable, fragile circumstances life could possibly hold..i can't wait to do that as a nurse...

so now my days are filled with studying or being at school or the hospital....i constantly smell like all the coffee shops i have deemed my libraries, as does TJ, the faithful jetta...i know the dallas coffee shop world..i know which ones make your clothes smell even more coffee beanish than others..what time they open...what time they close...the shifts the people work...who charges you for a mere inch worth of soy milk and who does not (i have a theory those who don't can see in my eyes the needy/allergy/food sensitive soul that i have)...when they have live music which is a rather annoying distraction from studying...those that play music that i actually love...those that actually have snacks that satisfy my gluten free, wheat free, dairy free needs...i pack a lunch and camp out for 8-12 hours, depending on what the next day holds for me...thanks to donna for my trendy lunch bag that i just throw an ice pack in and my weird foods have suddenly turned travel friendly...i may be the only girl in the crowd eating dehydrated fava beans but that has never stopped me before...

i am in a sink or swim world...some days i'm pretty sure it would probably benefit me to borrow my nephews spiderman floaties...seriously...

time takes time.

time takes time, you know. ben folds says that in one of his songs and i have found, over and over again, that it fits the moment i'm in. doesn't change the way i feel. doesn't change anticipation. doesn't make my heart feel unbroken after it feels as if it has been crushed. maybe the consolation, if there is any at all, is just the fact that it makes sense. time takes so much time. tick. tick. tick. tick. it's like an unspoken permission to stretch your arms out and feel whatever it is you need to feel. there is some strange comfort in knowing that the ticking will slow down and soon the feelings that have taken time to venture away from..well, they will just be memories forever inside that have shaped you and will continue to until the next time something happens and you realize that time is taking time...you know.

my heart is broken, my love is gone

why? why? why??????

i've had this commanding dream inside of me for what feels like eternity that has now been put to death. most who know me are fiercely aware that i've really thought that ryan adams and i were meant to be. i've been waiting for the moment when we would finally meet...(note: please be aware that i realize this still falls in the "dream inside of me" place) i'd show him songs i've written over the years....he would put them to music....we would get married....just little dreams like that. but, i suppose mandy moore beat me to it.

oh, sigh....................................................

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Music/02/12/m%20andy.moore.engaged/index.html

my saba...

Blake loved his Saba so much. what an amazing thing to get to watch his great-grandson grow up to be 5 years old..

allie and i are the most loved grandchildren by our saba and sabta. we both get overwhelmed just thinking about how much they love us.
more blake and saba. when blake was looking at this picture after we told him saba had died we were talking to him about remembering all the things we loved about saba and blake said he "remembered this was the time they tickled each other and laughed for a long time.." oh how sweet is that...
saba LOVED to dance. he is 88 in this picture - dancing the night away with allie and my aunt kim.
this was the entire clan minus me and my uncle robert...look how snazzy saba is...

when i first heard that my saba had become very ill i felt my heart begin to fill with sorrow. the most fierce pain, i think, was interwoven in thoughts of my saba not getting to be a part of the untold dreams that are yet to come in my life. he is a man who i want everyone who knows me to know. if you are a part of my life, you understand that because i talk about him with a sparkle in my eye. it was impossible to know him and not be enamored by his spunky personality, moved by his determination, and touched by his unconditional love. monday night when my family surrounded him to say our last goodbye's i suddenly felt those places of sorrow inside me fill with peace. i realized that now my saba will just be waiting in those dreams of mine, anticipating the moment i arrive at them. at his funeral as the rabbi spoke of his life i found myself even more proud of this man who has in so many ways shaped who i have become. he and my sabta set the standard for my parents for the way a family loves - unconditionally, openly, honestly, and without any embarrassment or shame ever present. as my sweet dad and mom each spoke about this man they have been supported by for 35 years of their own marriage, i found my gratitude simply began to swell more and more. i asked my dad to bring me one of my saba's handkerchiefs to hold at the funeral - a tangible something to feel like he was touching my hand somehow. i am so glad i did that. when my aunt spoke i realized the role of my dad in my life is so similar to the one my saba has played in hers - and i found the bond between she and i made even more sense then it already did. my sabta has spent the past 62 years of her life with saba and i can't imagine how proud she must feel of all he accomplished in his 88 years of life. i learned new stories that made me laugh and cry at the same time. if my saba loved you he didn't just dabble in kindness. he was too extraordinary for that. he loved you wholeheartedly. and my sister and i, his only grandchildren, were loved more wholeheartedly than everyone else i think. he adored me and i will forever strive to adore the people in my life like that. his death is nothing i can make sense of honestly. it is the first death that i have known in my soul this way. i have seen grief in far too many situations. i have helped families grieve in times that felt unfair. but never, until now, have i felt the bittersweet feeling of my own grief. when I was home this week I felt sad and my sorrow was understood by family and friends around me who loved saba and also felt sad. there is something so beautiful in weeping with those who weep and mourning with those who mourn. I feel like I caught different glimpses of people in my life that maybe I wouldn’t have had if we didn’t endure this sorrow together. I think death draws out of those of us who are still alive all the reserves we have stored up of our gifts and talents. because it requires this tender, cautious, compassionate awareness of what other people need. and that is so rich.

when it don't come easy...

sometimes we think we've learned a lesson, healed a wound, caught our breath...but for some unknown, mysterious, gray reason there is still more to learn about the lesson, the wound starts oozing, and maybe it feels as if each attempted breath is strained. i am suddenly faced with a baffling sting deep within my soul that i am not really sure what to do with. i don't know if i should bandage the place that is stinging and unravel the bandage every few days to see if there is progress in the healing. or maybe it's the kind of sting that needs to always be exposed to air so that it can heal. i have found in life that the best, most defining situations, are those that have no known remedy. that is where i am right now. regardless of needing to be protected by some bandage or exposed to the air, patience in this waiting room is essential. this situation is full of crossroads that require me to make very specific choices. choosing to press on drapped in truth is daunting...choosing to wallow and grumble under the all too familiar blanket of lies is my baseline response. but it is the former that i am striving to clothe myself in. the latter, i know, is detrimental to my well being. so in the mystery of lessons to learn about lessons i thought i've already learned, i am drinking cup after cup of truth and waiting for something grand.

the sun always rises...

i can not even begin to articulate how often the seasons of my life have changed...in a million moments i have struggled to patiently wait for release from being captive, restoration from being anxious, and life to come and fill me where i have felt lifeless...i have trudged on though...trusting, hoping, wishing, waiting...life, truly is rich...and so many moments i have failed to see that because i have been busy wallowing in the parts of the past that have been daunting, consuming, suffocating...now in my life exists a beautiful collaboration of friends, new friends, that have quickly entered my heart...and it is amazing what a little dose of genuine community does for the human spirit...i find myself floating through the captivity and anxiety and waving as i pass right on...some days i get stuck in those places and then someone inevitably shows me love and i catch my breath, maybe shed a few tears, and keep moving along...

an ode to a ticking clock....

distance i have welcomed
a ticking clock rests in between
this new world that i live in
without you woven in the seams

the circle goes round
and the leaves will always change
i missed you last month
but don’t miss you today

the circle goes round
and the sun will always set
i missed you all of winter
but the spring, it finally came