A bitter dose of much needed reality…

I really always considered myself a pretty out going person who was ready to take on the world, discover new things and learn new lessons. I feel like that philosophy that I once strived to live my life by has some how faded into something completely opposite of that. I find now that I’m, although you might not always see it, lacking in confidence and afraid of the world in general, as an avid traveler I’m very much aware of the dangers that are out there but I feel like sometimes the become so overwhelming that I’d just prefer to wall up my windows and give up now rather than risk some of the alternatives. And maybe I’m being a little bit dramatic but that “Human Trafficking” made for TV movie that staring Mira Sorvino had a very big part in this newfound fear. I just don’t understand any more people’s fascination with the end of the world or with movies that display torture, I don’t know if I ever really understood it. I feel as if I’ve moved way past being shocked and more toward actually being terrified of the reality of these situations. But that’s not really the most acrid aspect of my revelation, as I now face the world as a single American woman at the age of 23, I find that I have a serious internal fear of being alone. Its like a having a little nagging person on my shoulder tapping their foot and pointing to the clock, reminding me that I’m only getting older. And that’s another thing, our distain for aging in America. We all get old, it happens, I don’t understand why people are so obsessed with the idea of being young forever when you spend such a large portion of your time actually being older, or what people would consider older 30 and up. I guess after getting out of my 4 year relationship recently I still find it hard to picture myself with anyone, its not like I’m sitting around thinking about my ex but it disturbs me that I cant manage to conjure up a hunky ideal man to aim for. I feel like I have absolutely no idea what my type is! And then done even get me started about meeting people, I’m pretty sure my best friend, who’s been single while I was with my ex, has dated just about all the good guys Fresno, CA. has to offer up and in the end most of them were still douche bags. It doesn’t seem to matter old, young, slightly geeky or socially awkward, completely available or Mr. relationship, in the end they all were extremely vague and completely were always lacking in at least one of the fundamental relationship guidelines. A.K.A. don’t cheat, don’t lie, don’t be cheap, don’t be clingy, don’t be possessive and the list goes on. I just need to get out of Fresno, or tell me has the well run dry, are there really no good men out let?

Dont stay up thinking about the past...

Its so hard for me to truly identify why I feel so sad... you'd think it was because my significant other of four years was caught with the attempt to cheat on me thus making me up to break up with him, but that’s not it. You'd think it was because I feel insecure with myself after quite obviously not being enough for this individual seeing as how he had to go and look for something else. You might event think that I’m really so sad because this was my first love, my first time, my first everything… but in all honestly I’m just lonely I’m sad due to the absence of my love, maybe it’s not even him maybe its just absence in general the fact that, even though I have this wonderful support group of family and friends, I still feel so very alone. I know I’m not the only one to ever have a break up and that there are others whose breakups were far more dramatic and traumatizing but of course it doesn’t really register at this point. I feel so emotionally disturbed that I don’t even think I know the true depth of my pain. Every time I think I’m fine I find myself being bombarded by emotional landmines that are planted all though out my being. Why is it so hard to just move on? Even though I know this person is so not worth it, I feel like my bleeding heart personality wont let me give up, I’ve strived so hard to be there for this individual, to care for, to love, to encourage and in the end its so hard to walk away even though no one would blame me, even though I have more than enough cause to just get up and go… I just feel like I’m giving up on him. And its horrible because he so earnestly is trying to win me back and just apologize. He’s sent flowers, begged, even offered to go to counseling and every part of me just wants to be okay with these meager gifts of apology that he’s offering up but I feel that at this point I cant, its my pride as a woman. I must mention this isn’t the first time he cheated on me or rather I caught him attempting to cheat but the first time he actually cheated on me. But that was when we were way younger and he was such a dog, after that he really straightened up and was almost perfect… I just feel like for the longest time I wasn’t encouraging him but rather trying to mold him into the man I wanted, nay, the man I needed him to be for me. And that was my bad, I was wrong in all fairness I should have broken it off a long time ago but I guess I wasn’t strong enough. How do you end something that doesn’t seem to have any huge issues… does this make sense? Its late and I’m just trying to get all this off my chest. I’m just sooooo sad right now, my friend keeps trying to push guys on my but I’m just no ready and I feel the pushing is more likely to push me back to my ex rather than help me move on. Isn’t it amazing some people never find someone they love I think what scares me most is that I myself could be one of those people. I don’t feel like Steven was my true love but I did love him and I’m truly hurting right now because he forced me to end something that I wanted so badly. But perhaps I should thank him more so because I was probably more comfortable than actually in love with him. I mean sure I loved him but in this world at this time love isn’t enough. I’ve not found one case where love was ever actually enough.

better to have loved and lost..?

I feel so numb right now... I've made the decision, with good cause, to leave my boyfriend of 4 years, my first love, my first everything. Its 3:30AM and I cant sleep, I have school but I cant think, I dont want to think because none of my thoughts on this situation seem at all rational. Im sad not for having caught him in an attempt to cheat situation but more so because he's gone. I'm honestly hardly hurt maybe because he was drinking and he didnt actually persue this later but he left a paper trail a mile long that quite clearly showed his intent and I just decided enough was enough. On top of all the general issues we've dealt with as a couple this year, this act of disrespect was the straw that broke the camels back. I love him so much though I almost feel as if theres absolutely no way this is truly happening. He wants to make it work and well he says all the right things I cant help but feel as if I've made a good choice even though its completely distroying me on the inside. I just want to pretend like nothing happened but I cant, I cant be that person who just turns a blindeye. I want to be strong and believe that theres someone else better for me and although I'm sure there is I just can even imagen who. When I was younger I use to be able to visualize who it was that I might end up with one day but now those visions do not come all I see is this person who has hurt me but who I care very much for still. Question, can you still befriends with someone you've had long term relationship with? and if yes how long does it take to get to that point, ballpark? I just want the best for my ex even though I should hate him I know he just needs to grow up and unfortunately I cant help him with that and in some way that kills me because I had hoped that maybe I could.

maybe...

I feel like I'm speeding through the emotional process of a break up... everything in our relationship recently was either really hot or really cold and by hot I meant more of stable and by cold i meant exceptionally questionable, if that makes sense. I suppose nothing about relationships ever really does make sense. You sit around wondering if this person is really the one and then you feel bothered by the fact that your even asking yourself that, shouldn't the "one" just come to you and feel right? Shouldn’t there be some sort of unexplainable epiphany that that person is unique and capable of loving you without you having to explain what it is you need. I know this is an exceptionally naive way of looking at love but what can I say that’s what I've been socialized to think. And now here I am at the end of a perfectly good four-year relationship and all I can say is ... nothing Actually i have nothing specific to say, just need a place to vent i suppose. It was a mutual decision brought on by a fight, apparently I've got to hot of a temper from his standpoint and from mine... I don’t really know what to say our relationship is, or was good, great even but not earth shattering I’ve cried and I know I’m gonna keep crying for a while, it hurts but I have a sort of hope within. Its as if my ridiculous amount of questions as to if he was "it" had lead me to this conclusion long ago but it makes no sense to through away a perfectly good relationship He was always sweet, loving, supportive a true guys guy in every sense of the work guy but he was never completely my kinda guy... I don’t know why, I don’t like it .. But that’s what it is a perhaps that what its always been .. It still hurts though... and it sometimes hurt when I was with him.. he was the only person I know who could take a delicate subject made of good intentions and promise and turn it into something painful and taboo... I found myself hurt more than not, crying when he wasn’t looking, when no one was looking at odd and inappropriate times when we were among friends or out on the town. He continuously hurt me in was i don’t think he realized nor did i fully understand but i know hurt and i was finding much where there had once been understanding and love or perhaps it was just convenience... maybe that’s all we ever were to each other, convenient. The two are often confused especially in the panic to find "the one." Am I scared of being alone? Yes, probably more than anything and that is where I've fault within myself. Whats the difference between wanting to change a man and wanting to be apart of him growing and becoming a better man? It all sounds so similar to me and i think i tried to hard to be apart of my man, well me ex's attempts to better himself.. or lack of attempts.. He’s such a great guy, I love him so much but i often have wondered if love was ever enough to sustain a relationship.. Love alone, along with all the complications that exist in this world. We all know you cant live on it but can you just have something you love and not something you try and grow... does that make sense... for example we all start from square one but as we grow we attempt to grow together and if one part of the relationship continues to grow in the same direction but not at the same rate and not with the same luster, what then? My body is so numb i feel sick from this.. 4 yrs all gone... guess it could have been longer ... you know it really wasn’t the growing thing it was the little things, the tiny things that you notice and that keeps you guessing on your toes and just inspired... then again maybe it was just me...

The unforetold flush of love...

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"I HIT A QUACK!"

The other night a rather odd incident took place on the outskirts of Fresno, it didn’t make the papers and to be honest it hardly resonates in my mind at this moment but I feel it should be noted. What is it that we place value on in this life? Money? Luxury items? Image? What about life in general? Or do you have a price for that too? A few days ago I was in the car when a, not the driver but still a part of the equation, when the car I was in struck a duck who had been curled up on the middle of the road. It was about 3am and we were on a road far from where traffic flowed heavily, so to say this was a “dumb duck” I think would be unfair. I mean, technically this was a classic example of suburbia hell moving onto the turf of animals who were still unfamiliar with the boarders that had, unbeknownst to them, been laid down right through what I’m sure was their usual habitat. Needless to say the duck died, despite our desperate attempts to rush the poor animal to the animal hospital, which if you can imagine was located at an unreasonable distance and the only one open at 3am.
This whole thing got me thinking though, what’s it all worth, our lives, where are we going. If a tree falls and no body is around to whiteness it, did it really happen? Or if a simple duck is struck down in its prime, by an outside force, does it matter? I know we can not compare the life of an animal with that of human, mainly because there are just so many opinions on whether or not animals even have souls but doesn’t it matter in some way. Isnt there some sort of butterfly effect, is there a point? If this little seemingly meaningless duck counts for not, in a universe so vast and majestic, then what could anyone of us ever hope to matter in the greater scheme of thing? Where are we going? And why aren’t we concerned about it now? I know we have religion but most religions are of the cafeteria sort where everyone is picking a choosing the bits they want and for good reason but nonetheless if this is the case then what the hell is the point? I have guilt over this duck… and who knows maybe its got a family out there that misses it. (don’t know the sex of the duck, didn’t check lol so that is why its being referred to as “it.”)….


The other night a rather odd incident took place on the outskirts of Fresno, it didn’t make the papers and to be honest it hardly resonates in my mind at this moment but I feel it should be noted. What is it that we place value on in this life? Money? Luxury items? Image? What about life in general? Or do you have a price for that too? A few days ago I was in the car when a, not the driver but still a part of the equation, when the car I was in struck a duck who had been curled up on the middle of the road. It was about 3am and we were on a road far from where traffic flowed heavily, so to say this was a “dumb duck” I think would be unfair. I mean, technically this was a classic example of suburbia hell moving onto the turf of animals who were still unfamiliar with the boarders that had, unbeknownst to them, been laid down right through what I’m sure was their usual habitat. Needless to say the duck died, despite our desperate attempts to rush the poor animal to the animal hospital, which if you can imagine was located at an unreasonable distance and the only one open at 3am.
This whole thing got me thinking though, what’s it all worth, our lives, where are we going. If a tree falls and no body is around to whiteness it, did it really happen? Or if a simple duck is struck down in its prime, by an outside force, does it matter? I know we can not compare the life of an animal with that of human, mainly because there are just so many opinions on whether or not animals even have souls but doesn’t it matter in some way. Isnt there some sort of butterfly effect, is there a point? If this little seemingly meaningless duck counts for not, in a universe so vast and majestic, then what could anyone of us ever hope to matter in the greater scheme of thing? Where are we going? And why aren’t we concerned about it now? I know we have religion but most religions are of the cafeteria sort where everyone is picking a choosing the bits they want and for good reason but nonetheless if this is the case then what the hell is the point? I have guilt over this duck… and who knows maybe its got a family out there that misses it. (don’t know the sex of the duck, didn’t check lol so that is why its being referred to as “it.”)….


it was this type of duck... and did not get run over by the tire and die right away, which probably would have been better. It looked like it had broken its neck and died as we tried to rush it to the animal hospital. : ( we have come to refer to the duck as ducky ....

Getting old, ain't it a b*tch...?!

I recently came into contact with a person I hadn’t seen in about six years. Its funny how time can change people, if it doesn’t get a hold of who they are and warp that slightly, it takes a tight grip upon their youth and exerts its power through taking the shine from their skin or the gleam out of their eyes. I experienced this yesterday; I saw the gray that had taken over the whole person that was my stepfather who I hadn’t seen in years. Granted he is only my stepfather in the sense that he is married to my mother, he had no hand in raising me or anything, but non the less he was a person who I knew well and who I knew when he was quite vibrant and full of color. My stepfather is a truck driver, something he said to me after I saw him for the first time and was unable to hold back my surprise at how he had aged, “Its not the years, it’s the miles.” He said this in his heavy Tennessee accent that anyone else who was unfamiliar with, would have no idea what he’d uttered, but having spent two years in Tennessee and am more than capable of understanding the thickest of accents from just about anywhere. More on the topic of getting older though, I got to thinking about “the miles,” that which can age us more than just the passing of time. Contributors to “the miles” would be children, debt, manual labor, death, serious injury, failures and even success;” it appears as though just about anything can make you age faster than perhaps you were intended to. Its amazing to think that from the moment that we are born, our internal clock begins to tick and from that moment on we are on a one way road that leads to the unknown but non less inevitable out come, death. We are all destined to die, even now I type my thoughts out for you and you read word by word, second by second, our body’s are continuously breaking down, we’re aging, completing a cycle that we have no control over, nor do we fully comprehend why or to what end our souls are racing towards. Although this isn’t a blog about the unknown and this isn’t a blog about death, I simply seek to draw attention to the present. Our current existence, which I personally feel I sometimes take for granted. My youth, when will it be my turn to look into a mirror and say “Where did the time go?” when will you find that you no longer can run a lengthy distance or take on a hard days hike. Everyday we have a new opportunity to cease the day, but do you?

2012

Honestly, I was terrified when I first heard about the prophecies that surround the year 2012. Prophecies of death and destruction, from very notable sources apparently, The Mayan’s and Nostradamus. Its going to be the end of the world they say… but you know after further research, I honestly don’t believe it will be the “end of the world.” You see the Mayan’s were exceptionally, ridiculously even, advanced when it came to astrology. They created calendars which still are 100x’s more advanced and accurate than even the calendar we use today. But just because their calendar ends in 2012 it doesn’t mean that the worlds going to end. First of all there is evidence that shows that they were attempting to continue their calendar but that, oh I don’t know, the complete obliteration of their civilization may have stopped that process. Also, the Mayan’s were a people who believed that life was full of cycles; everything eventually repeats its cycle. For example the cycle of any successful civilization is that it the civilization will first establish its self as such. It will thrive and prosper and then eventually it will fall for one reason or another, usually their downfall is due to their misuse of their resources, over population, corruption in their politics, and/or problems from expanding their reach further than they could actually control. Either way this is the way they saw things, and 2012 was just the end of another cycle, yes maybe hurricane or a massive earthquake is in order but for the most part I don’t know about all that hubbub balloo about the end of the world. I think personally if anything it’ll probably just be the end of America’s position as a world power, not that we haven’t been out of the running for that title for a while now but I truly think, if anything will happen, that’s what we might face. I mean if you really were to hear the Catunes (every repeated period of 20years which they made predictions for) , and the predictions made by Nostradamus they honestly sound much like a what we know today as a horoscope. Exceptionally vague and easily applied to a large array of events that take place in each segment of 20yrs, and that’s what I’ve found in both the predictions made by Notradamus and the Mayans. So do your own research, as for me I’m most worried about the economy getting worse and that (even though I have total faith that Obama is going to give his all to our country) its scary to think that 2012 is only in three years, just enough time for the effects of the things we’re doing today and our new presidential administration, to really begin to show. But we Shall see… any thoughts?!

photography (yeah still getting use to it)

this is their drummer practicing before their gig...













Me, Susy and Erica ...


You know for not knowing my way around my camera quite yet I think i did well. It was dark, my subject was moving ALOT!! So here are the shots, I don’t know how to edit quite yet so I really haven’t done anything to these images. They are literally straight from my camera, so don’t be to harsh. Oh and by the by the band is local for the Fresno, Ca. area and they are called "Subdue."


okay well those are for the most part my favorites, let me know what you think!! theres gotta be some photographers out there that have something to say, and dont worry about being to critical, just as long as its not nasty. And let me remind you, I’m still feeling my way around my camera and these were just the most difficult circumstances, movement and no light.. well dim lighting.. xoxo

The Fear…

The New Year is here and all those old hopes and dreams have, as per usual, begun to bubble to the surface. Every year like clock work, everyone gets this surge of energy, this “I can if I try this year,” attitude which sends them down the path of good intentions but inevitably, for the majority of us at least, we slowly begin to deflate in our enthusiasm, we fizzle out and then we’re done. This year hasn’t really shown any signs of being any different than the last 22 years of my life, especially when compared to the last 10 years where I was actually old enough to be aware of the magic that is a “New Year Resolution.” But, in stead of concentrating on my future goals this year I reviewed my past mistakes, mishaps anything that put me in the position to really feel like I needed a “change.” I’m a girl that’s use to change, no stranger to keeping just enough in my room that I could pack it all up and leave at a moments notice. That was me at least; I was also a good amount more confident and quite a bit surer of where I was going… But now, I’ve realized I was never really sure of where I was going, I just knew where I didn’t want to be and I’ve managed to stay clear of that place (which, if you haven’t picked up on this yet, this place that I don’t want to be isn’t an actual location, it’s more of a state of being). In this retrospection I’ve identified my biggest fear, which I’ve always had but had not yet realized was effecting my every decision. The fear of failure, I know, I know “but everyone is afraid of failure, Amy!” Well I gotta be honest I’m pretty sure this goes a little deeper than the quintessential “Oh what if I’m not voted best looking, or what if I lose my bundle in my investment.” Its like a black fog that’s exploded around me, ever since I witnessed my own mothers decent in to this haze I’ve constantly been playing it safe, even in my most intrepid moves I find myself holding on to the ledge, to afraid to jump in. Even when I’m over working myself, I find theirs a method to my strategically putting just enough on my plate, I do just enough in each of my classes, internships, work, art, that I always have the excuse that I’m spread to thin. Nothing is my best work because I never give all of myself to anything. Does this make sense; it made sense this morning. I’ve made a new resolution, its much like the Nike slogan, nope wait it is the Nike slogan, “Just Do It!” I suppose we’ll see how fare this new years resolution goes for me in 2009. If all else fails the worlds suppose to be ending in 2012 anyways so, who gives a shit right..?!