I'm friend dating? Here's my number?

The moment that change enters my life or the taunting knock at the door I get very resistant. Eventually I let the change happen and I work with it. Though it takes me a bit to take it all in. I haven't had a "easy" year in a long time nor do I think I have had one. Though what is a easy year anyways? I am not sure. I have noticed that I am getting comfortable. I'm not pushing myself I suppose.

In the past years of my life they have been dramatically filled with situational events. Healing from my mother's death has been constant and very often intense. I have filed through things of what I thought were important to deal with and then I accepted what life brought at my door to file through. Then ever so often other family affairs started to happen. When they died down it was time to graduate from college. So I can say now I'm pretty content even if things are very different and not too exciting.

Until I realized that I need something. That being an introvert can have consequences if it isn't played right. I'm too selective when it comes to friends. Of course it has done me well in the past and I have met and kept some pretty awesome friendships up but right now I need that random chat over coffee.

You see a lot of my close friends aren't in the area anymore or they are still in California. Or they perhaps are leading very work focused lives. Which isn't bad at all. I'm in a stage of my life now that isn't totally similar with everyone at my age.

I'm friend shopping? I'm friend dating? Here's my number?

If you have ever been in that situation of a new environment or your current environment has evolved into something else...I think you know what I am getting at. I'm not lonely just mostly alone on my days off. It's something I don't hate and I am fine with. However, I've never lived in my comfort zone for too long and its time to spread out and see what can be done.

One thing here. This is weird. This is a weird topic and weird to write about it. Though if I write this blog I want to be transparent. I need to be transparent. There is something enticing for me there when I am able to do that.

I have had it in the past where I have moved back home it was the hardest thing to do...to make new friends. It was hard to fit in and understand where people hang out or the kinds of people. I always long to be accepted like everyone else in my own way. I like to be funny and have people laugh at my corny jokes that don't always make sense. I also find it completely weird when we automatically think its easy to make friends for everyone. Its easy for me sometimes because I tend to put a lot of myself in friendships though I rarely do it because of my personal insecurities. I tend to be less confident and less myself with people I don't know. What can I say putting yourself out there for friends to hang out with is the weirdest thing ever to do....Its great but a strange concept because we think that everyone has friends and that people are hanging out all the time. False. Just not true.

Well after babbling and not really having a clear blog entry I invite you on my journey of....finding friends in the area?

P.S haha yes I have friends they are just not here...or very very busy people

So I cried and then woke up with a smile.

This might be my way of dealing with whatever is going on or maybe not dealing with it. I’m not sure. I asked one of my best friends if my blog entries were sad and depressing because people will message me and ask me if everything is alright and etc. She said no because its about struggles, something that people tend to not share and you are sharing that. I’ll take her word for it because most of times when I write my blog entries it’s because whatever happened already happened and is in the process of being dealt with. You, the reader, do not hear about the good times or you don’t necessarily see the good in my struggles. Now before I go on I do have a disclaimer. This blog entry will seem sad maybe very sad. Although it isn’t entirely actually. It is my life and something that will be apart of my life till I die. It follows me where ever I go. It is the entry about my mom. 

I tend to write this entry (once a year) mostly for myself when it becomes close to Halloween. It frees me from the thoughts that I didn’t know I had. However, I am noticing it has become an useful tool in allowing people to get to know me on a level that is hard to open up about. 

Every year I come to this month of October. Every year it has been very different. Every year it has gotten better and better. The third time this month came around after my mom passed away I went into this intense depression. I shut out the world and let in the vile creatures that lived outside of it. Vile creatures, I don’t ever want to see them again. I had this traumatic night when it set off things inside me that were horrible and terrifying. I was messaging the best friend that I spoke of earlier. The conversation went wrong and I eluded to suicide then shut off my computer. I put on my jacket and took a scarf then went outside. I could feel the devil taunting me. I called someone that I thought I would never call. We spoke and after I felt better. But my phone was going off from my friends who were so worried about me. The third year...the shock or numbness finally dissolved and left me. I became real with what I had in front of me. I was alone and distant from my family. I was in a place I was semi familiar with. That was a very dramatic and intense time in my life that I do not want to experience again. I am terrified of that time in my life. It was something that lead me to the deep end. 

This October. I can feel the crisp air on my face and my eyes are amazed by the colors of the leaves. The air smells fresh and I can feel winter knocking at the door...ready to come in. I can enjoy pumpkin carving even when I do mess up. I can start planning somewhat of what I want to be for Halloween. I became proactive and took work off on Halloween. I felt sad a few days ago. So I cried and then woke up with a smile. If living will be like this then I can handle it. I’ll take it. I’ve finally accepted that I’m an introvert. I do not get energized from people. They actually drain me. I can sit in my house for a few hours without having people over or me going to them. I don’t think I can express enough how awesome that feels. Being alone and not feeling lonely. 

My brother Brandon woke me up on October 31st, 2007 at 4:09am. All he said to me was “It’s time.” I knew what those two words meant and he left my room as soon as he said them. I put socks on and went to the “nice” room where my mom’s hospital bed was. She laid there...lifeless. She laid there and I could feel that her soul was gone. It’s ironic now that I saw death on Halloween. This is the first time that I find it quite amusing in a very dark comedy way. My family will make jokes time to time. They are pretty inappropriate jokes about my mom, death, and the present together. It helped us and helps us deal with it. Last October it was the day of Halloween and it was the first time I went out in the States for Halloween, the first time I went out on Halloween after my mom passed was in Spain. Daniela and I were sitting on her bed. I let her in the most I have ever let someone in. I don’t remember the exact words at all. But she made an inappropriate dead mom joke. I knew at that point we were family, where ever we would be in life. I laughed so hard at the joke. It was hilarious. 

October 2013 is good. I’m just breaking even every month for bills. Its painful but it is the best incentive to make it to graduate school and finish. I live in a semi shaddy neighborhood but the house is awesome and the church across the street is always full. The church makes me feel like I am in Europe again. All the people that go there are walking around all the time nicely dressed. I’m dating an awesome guy who is as stubborn as me. I’ve realized that I invented a recipe. My friends are calling it Brenna’s Potatoes. I also have been noticing that I love a clean living environment. I need the house clean or else. Something that is very interesting has been coming alive in me also. I have being paying attention to things I do. Some of my traits, quirks, and characteristics are like my mom’s. The cleaning...is one. The weird sense of what goes with what while cooking and making up recipes...granted I have not always known how to cook at all but I forced myself to. The stubbornness is a given. And the ambition to succeed in life in whatever form that is....is also from her. She may not be here. She may not be able to give me relationship advice. She may not be here to send me packages or sooth my cries. She may not be here to tell me how much I’ve grown. Though these things are true...the more I see her inside me and my siblings I feel as though she is. October 2013 is good. 

when my heart is calm and my head is light

I have these moments in my life when my heart is calm and my head is light. I have a lot going on but I seem to be content. I don't know how I will afford some bills right now but I have a roof over my head. I have food in my belly. I have two jobs whether they are good enough or not.

I got a tattoo a few months ago. It is three arrows. I got the idea from my culture induced brain. However, I designed the arrows and made each one different. The middle one is further down than the left and right one. It represents my family. The right one represents my friends that turned into family. The left one represents my best friend. Arrows are meant to hit their target. They are meant to go straight. With the people in my life I'm going straight. I have seen the path and I am going there. For some reason its always been hard for me to not rebel. I've wanted to rebel since I could remember. But I thought about it more than doing it.

I put myself in hard situations. I tend to do it subconsciously. When the situation is figured out the benefit is amazing. The feeling you get when you get that first pay check is stimulating. I suppose I learn the hard way. I haven't really learn things the easy way or even had the chance to at most cases. I suppose I like to fight and then be held when it's too much.

Lately, I have been looking at my arm which as the arrow tattoo. The weather has been warm and the leaves are starting to change. This is my favorite season to be silent in and just watch the commotion of mundane activity through out the city. I've been able to see my tattoo. Most of the people that are behind the tattoo aren't present. So maybe looking at this symbol in my life makes it feel like they are right there with me. I don't know to be honest.

But I feel content. I feel struggle. I feel loved. I feel tried. I feel pushed. I feel relieved.
Though yesterday however I started to miss someone so bad that it hurt. I didn't want to reply to the text. I wanted to be with them. When you love a person whether it is a friend or the person you are with there will always be hard moments. Moments that you want to be ceased. Though to be honest in some of those moments I feel my most content. Because I know I'm doing something right when they miss me and I miss them. I know I'm doing something right because it takes work to make something better.

Most of the time I'm selfish. Most of the time I have walls that I don't even know I had. But I fight...I fight for something better. I fight to be content in my situation and when I achieve that I feel a very intense emotion. The emotion makes me want to sing.

It doesn't seem real.

I never knew what growing up was or what it meant to me. It has always looked different. On my roadtrip from California to Michigan, I was driving through Colorado. It was so beautiful to me. I haven't seen beauty like that in so long. It reminded me of so many things...the beauty in my friends and family. It reminded me of the feelings I got in Spain. I couldn't quite place a finger on it about how it felt in Spain until I felt it again that day. I saw what I felt, the beauty. Spain was a place where I grew up and so many things about that trip made me feel alive. I feel alive again though in a very different way. I'm unleashed by undergraduate school. Life is an empty salad bowl. I have chance to put what I want in it now. However, life's normal occurrences have been interrupting exactly what I want in that salad bowl.

When I arrived in Michigan I had decided early on that I would have no expectations of the place or what it meant in the past. My mind was left blank to allow the weird turn of events to wedge themselves in my life. My life here is different, very different from what it was in college. No one expects anything out of me besides work. I have to put on my own demands and constraints. Like always I learned the hard way in the first two days. My rent and security deposit was more than I expected which resulted in a depletion of my money. If thought that was bad...it got worse. My credit card was stolen. It never seems to end. I had a bed...just a bed in my room. No food....and a dad that was angry with me.

There are times where I just want to curl up in my Mom's arms and have her stroke my arm until I fall asleep. This period of life is defiantly one of them. Though obviously I couldn't...it's not possible. So I took a big bite of the bullet and pressed on.

I'm not totally sure how I am going to pay for rent or the payments on my car or for bills and food. Hopefully the two part time jobs I am working at will pay off.

This is life. I've pretty much grown to just adapting to it and not letting things really get to me. I've evolved into someone else over the years. Someone different and I'm getting to know this new person. Life is a bitch. It really is. It's only going to become more of a bitch but you have learn to adapt to it. Change the things that aren't working for you. I've had to cut out a ton of things that I love because it costs money. For 4 years I had the privilege of budgeting those things into my monthly expenses.

I'm trying. I miss my best friends like crazy and I know it would be easier if all of them were here. But I don't have that so I have to change and adapt to it. I miss them so much. It doesn't seem real.

I sipped my coffee too eagerly

I sipped my coffee too eagerly and it burned the tip of my tongue. I let it settle and took another sip. She didn't care for me smoking which I knew so I waited until our conversation was over. My mind was impatience to hear her advice though I waited. She wasn't like Dad who gave this elongated explanation for what he was saying.
We were outside on the patio. Dad finally got the pepper tree to be cut and the view was ours once again. The fog wasn't settling anymore as the sun started to heat up and burn it all off causing the mountains to be visible. I knew she had some errands to run so I didn't waste any more time to ask her if moving back would be a good idea.

This is what I imagine it would of been like if my mom was alive and I had the opportunity to talk to her when I needed to. Though I don't have that now. I wish it was as easy as sending an email to her or even a text. I've had to think of different ways to handle this. For some reason getting your mom's advice is special in this sense that they want you to stay but they also know what is better for you to do. I imagine that when I get the chance to talk to her...it will be a weird sense of comfort.

I haven't gotten a clear answer about moving but I am still moving. Its this feeling I have. This feeling that feels right. There are a handful of people that I've talked to that aren't bias but there are a handful of people that are. Either they want me to stay to just "hang out" or they want me to come to just "hang out".  Haha but what's the right decision? Well, I have come up with pros and cons that have led me to a decision. It would of been easier with my mom around, however that isn't an option.

I'm not entirely good at remembering details. It often takes me longer to understand something or learn something. I can be irrational sometimes. I tend to make a decision without thinking very hard about it. I enjoy advice from people who know me very well. There are times I still feel like a kid and it irritates me. Though I am not sure why I am so eager to grow up. Maybe because I'm happy when I find myself. Find myself through my own individuality.

I'm in a time in my life where I'm trying to build a life.

Her lips went together after sipping more coffee. It was now unsettling hot outside and it was time to get dress to go on with the day full of errands. Her advice left me unsettled but comforted in the ways that I expected.

I fell in love with 11 people

I didn't have the moment of realization once things started to change. They all seemed different from me or just not my crowd for some reason. I didn't feel accepted until I accepted them. The process was quite quick however. It happened so fast that I am not sure I realized exactly what happen in the last two years. My past is cloudy and dusty. It has taken me years to sort through things that influenced who I am today. My feet seem to be tired some days although I keep pressing on. That is what they accepted and loved.

When I met them my world changed. Somehow some way we all connected in this unimaginable way. I felt as though I could be myself and being myself around such a large number of people. The most perfect or close to perfect thing in this world is to be understood and accepted. The most horrible thing in this world is to be misunderstood and not accepted.

There are many things in this world that cause us grief and uncertainty. When joy and certainty is found it is as if life is found, the meaning of life is found. I don't know if you have found that but when you do...it is pretty intense. It is when you finally understand what God's love is even if it is for a split second. They took my hand in my anger, grief, joy, and complete happiness. They held my hand when I wanted to scream. They acted like real raw human beings...and saw God's beauty in them. I saw honest and genuine beings. 

Kind eyes and relentless love. The excuses of parties and events just to see each other. Making every weekend seem like a holiday. Wanting the best for them in their studies or work but pressuring to just see them. Telling stories of the past and making memories for future story telling. You will have a place in my heart that will never be kept secret. I will decorate it with the most comfy blankets and pillows...for those afternoon naps.

For some reason when I feel the rain and warm air I think of you all. Something about how it makes me feel resembles the times we have had. We have seen each other at our worse and at our best. It is like rain in the middle of summer. Or it is like a summer day in the middle of winter.

I have a lot of wants and wishes. Some will be fulfilled and others simply won't. Though I will always want to have a day where we are all be together again. I will fight for it. I'm this hopeless romantic for my friends in ways they only understand. I cannot pull away or disengage even though I want nothing more but to get rid of this pain. I've felt greif and I will always feel grief. But pulling away from something that is still there in a sense makes no sense...It simply does not. Once you lose something you understand what fighting for is all about. It is about something bigger than yourself.

I fell in love. I fell in love with 11 people. Each one took my heart and nourished it. They won't give it back. I won't give their hearts back either.

My first goodbye was to my friend Jeremy when I left grand rapids. We actually had two goodbyes, haha that wasn't planned. The first goodbye I think I said goodbye to the whole group in my heart because after that goodbye the other goodbyes I detached from. I cried on the train a little but when I said goodbye to Jeremy everything felt very real. It was as if the curtain was removed and I saw my future. I saw a world that I didn't want. I built my home in your hearts. I built it very deep. When I see you I feel home. I feel for a period of time that I don't need to put up fronts or facade. I can be the person that I was meant to be.

I have two families. One family I was born into. One family I found myself in. When does that happen twice?

When I got off the plane late in the night...I knew this wasn't my home anymore.

I got home almost two weeks ago. When I got off the plane late in the night...I knew this wasn't my home anymore. I knew instantly and all my fears of life settled themselves inside my head. These fears I am not sure of anymore as I was terribly overwhelmed with life. I missed my friends. I missed the way the city woke up. I missed the way the air felt in my lungs. I missed the strangers. I missed hugging. I was told to settle in for a few weeks before making any irrational decisions. So I tried. Although I still feel I don't belong in California. The people here are very individualistic and very inward. Communities that provide life and growth are hard to find because you cannot feel it. I cannot feel it like I felt it in Grand Rapids. That city taught me about family and life.

I told a friend about how I felt and it was enlightening. She feels the same way but needs to be home for certain reasons. The churches here are very big we concluded. The might be for all the lost souls.

I always wondered why people stayed in Grand Rapids. I wondered why it was so appealing and remarkable. I didn't quite understand them until I myself when home to live. I moved here and yet I am a person with no heart because I left it in Grand Rapids. Its troubling to know that.

I need to get back on my feet. Pay bills. And then move back. That is my goal.

Since I have been home I have also felt a different feeling that I rarely feel. I feel useless. I feel as though I have no skills and even no skills in relationships. My head is on some other level for the moment. I hope I can change that soon. I need to adequate for this life that I have established. Did I lose something? Is that something confidence? I am not sure. I hope not. I will do anything in my power to find it.

So here I am to find myself in a new way growth. I shall work hard and be productive.

The funny thing is. I realize that if I go back to Grand Rapids...half of my friends will be there....but none at all I dont know. I just know that my heart isn't here in San Diego anymore. I've moved on.