For Brenda & Michael.

She realized that she was definitely the worst person to ever attempt to complete a crossword puzzle. But that wasn’t her huge epiphany of the day. For she had always known she was terrible at crossword puzzles, and therefore hardly attempted them. The huge epiphany had something to do with friendship and friends’ ability to get you through anything.
She had just spent a long night/day (about fourteen hours beginning at around 5AM but who was really keeping track?) in the emergency room with a thin blue curtain as the only divider between another patient and the friend she was with. The other patient’s case was much more severe and the news his family received was quite awful to say the least. The entire neurology and cardiology department made their rounds to deliver their assessments to his family; it was that bad. Michael (she inevitably came to know the names of her temporary neighbors after hours of eavesdropping) had been diagnosed with prostate cancer a few years ago. Earlier that day, after attending his monthly check-up at his oncologist’s office, Michael had suffered a massive stroke. The worst news was that neither the neurologists, cardiologists, or oncologists believed he’d make it for any significant period of time, nor did he have a chance of even waking up from his present state. His brother and his wife, Brenda, were with him through the night and first thing in the morning, a friend of Michael and Brenda’s came to the hospital. She took care of everything she could. Including, but absolutely not limited to, arranging rides for out-of-state and out-of-country family from the airport, all the meals for the day, and calling her personal travel agent to confirm arrangements for the family. She did everything she possibly could to make sure Brenda and Michael’s brother could focus on Michael.
That’s exactly what friends do. If nothing else they’ll just be there for you. And a lot of the time, that is so much more than we could ever hope for.

When Brenda and Michael’s friend tried to lighten the mood saying, “Well at the very least you know you two had a good run.” Brenda replied without any hesitation, “No, we had a great run.” ‘Now that,’ she thought to herself, ‘is love.’

To write.

She watched the sunset and wanted to cry. A father flies a kite with his son, lovers young and old meet and hide amongst the hanging branches and thick brush, the mist or fog or low flying clouds created an effect on the Malibu hills that made it look so picturesque or she would even say ethereal, if she was into that sort of thing. The whole scene was something seen only in romantic comedies. And then there was the ocean. Oh she would be so happy and content with her life if she could just sit for the rest of her life and stare at the ocean. To sit and contemplate the vast power of it, or the way the water brings smiles to children and adults alike in its way of tickling one’s feet or surprising one with its temperature. Or the way the sunlight reflected off the water, almost making one believe that there were two suns setting coming to meet each other at the horizon.
But contemplating simple beauties of the world does not issue a paycheck. Nor does it provide a socially acceptable education. Two things that were of constant concern for her. So she wrote. About love and the question of its existence, loss and heartache of which seemed to have a constant place in her life, confusion which came as a terrible by-product of youth slowly dissipating and transforming into adulthood, and friendship the only thing that seemed to make sense to her most of the time. She wrote to remember and in some ways to forget, but mostly to try and accept and understand why she was dealt the hand she held, and tried to figure out the rules of the game. ‘Everything’s so difficult,’ she often thought about it all, almost always followed with thoughts of defeat and failure. But as much as she, and she was sure everyone else had to, feel this way at one point or another, she couldn’t quit. It didn’t matter how bad she wanted to, she refused. Re-strategize was what she had to do, as difficult and unfeasible as it seemed. Because while there is so much pain and desperation and suffering in the world, there is also much beauty. And as terrible as days and nights and months and years can become, the sun always rises with the hope of something better. There are good days. Though there seem to be very few in comparison with the bad, they do exist. So with this thought, she rose from her perfect spot with the perfect view. She went on to once again attempt to accept that though she couldn’t just sit at her spot to watch and appreciate the beauty and grace and power of such things as the ocean forever, she could at least pause and visit. And maybe even once in a while, write.

Don't Ask.

Everyone always asks if you’re “okay.” She hated it. Every time someone new found out what happened they’d call or show up unannounced just to make sure she was “okay.” Frankly, it made her want to vomit. Of course she wasn’t okay, of course it took all of her physical, mental, and emotional strength just to get out of bed, and of course she was still very hurt, and very upset. Then people would always follow the “okay” question with phrases of condolences including but not limited to: “You’re better off without him. He didn’t deserve you. He was always an awful man.” And her favorite: “Well you look great! Considering…” None of it made her feel better, not even after constant repetition of the same things. But because she knew that it made everyone else feel better (and it was actually nice to have company when she was completely honest with herself) she permitted the visits. But the one person who she wanted to tell the most, needed to tell the most, wasn’t any one of the visits.
Tess was in New York, thousands of miles away. And she made sure that she wouldn’t find out about anything that had happened until absolutely necessary. Her baby sister was finally happy. After years of more than just a mere unsatisfying home life, and of trying to figure herself out, she had finally found herself on the right track. She had her career, her fiance, and everything else she had ever wanted. With the wedding just weeks away, the last thing she wanted was to put a damper on what was supposed to be the happiest day of her life.
He was still supposed to be in the wedding, Tess’s special request to have a representative of a “happy couple.” Because she didn’t want anything to ruin her baby sister’s special day, she made damn sure he’d still be there. He owed her this, (among a pretty hefty laundry list of other things she could thing of) at least this much, for certain.
College sweethearts. Except she never really got to finish college since they married so young, and someone had to support the two of them when he was in med school. But she had offered, volunteered. He was the love of her life, her best friend in the world, and so she was completely willing to sacrifice her dreams for his. He was the only man she had ever been with, the father of her children, the only investment she had ever made thinking that it was completely sound. All she kept thinking was, how could he do this to me? Eleven years of marriage, two years of dating, a one year engagement, (a total of fourteen years together) two beautiful children, and nothing to show for it? How the fuck could he do this to me?

Big Cities.

I watch Dawson's Creek for quotes like this:

"In a city like New York where everything is moving all the time at this constant driving pace, it’s like this living organism breathing and changing, and over time your relationship to it becomes like this incredible romance. At first its intoxicating, irresistible then slowly it becomes comfortable and safe, you have this cellular connection to it as if you’ve known each other forever like your oldest happiness. And sometimes you’re on the outs, and sometimes you’re making up. And every now and then you catch yourself in this transcendent moment when you think to yourself , 'Oh my God I’m madly in love with you, and I always will be.'

If only it was that easy to feel that way about a person rather than a beautiful city.

Stay tuned for more fictional entertainment.

Thanks for the Music.

If you love someone you let them go, you said. It’s selfish to stay and fight, I agreed. But when does it become okay to stay and fight? If the person seriously needs help? If you honestly think that they shouldn’t go and it really is for their own good? It’s preposterous to think that at anytime it would be “good” or “better” to keep someone from living their life. Mothers always watch their children fall in the hopes that they learn how to walk. Parents let their child go off to college to teach them independence and growth. Friends watch their friends marry off in order to allow them to follow their hearts and achieve happiness. And lovers watch their partners walk away to ensure that what is done is done and will probably never be done again.
So what if you can’t let them go? What if you know you should and you try your hardest to, but you simply can’t? Does that make it okay to stay and fight? You told me you had to go. I told you I understood and allowed it to happen. But what if I lied? What if what I really thought was that although you “had no choice” but to go, I knew I needed you with me? Does that make me selfish? Does that make me a liar? What exactly does it make me, if it makes me anything? I told you what you needed to hear to make it okay to leave. I was as supportive as I possibly could be. And to be honest it hurt. It mother fucking hurt. But if there’s one thing you taught me, it’s to put others before myself, and so I put you before myself just as you would have done, I’m sure.
And so for that I’m thankful. Thank you for teaching me how to love and let go. Thank you for making me into the person I always hoped to become. And thank you for loving me and letting me know it. Although it was not in the way I wanted, it was more that I could have ever hoped for. So I’m going to leave too. I’m going to law school. I’m not going to take a break, and I am going to be truly alone for the first time in my life. The beauty of it is, I’m not as terrified as I had anticipated. I know I’ll be okay and I know I can make it because I know that there are people like you in the world. Thank you for letting me know this and thank you for allowing me to believe in people in a way that I honestly though I would never be able to again.

Curious Frienship

There’s a strange quite curious thing called friendship. You meet these people, who initially seem purely fine. Of course they’re polite and kind because you know nothing about them and they know nothing about you. But then, somewhere down the line you start to care. Then even further down the line you start to truly and deeply care and even love. You begin to change and grow simply by being with and knowing truly good people. And you spend a lot of time together because you choose to, because you know for a fact that it is definitely worth your while.
For a while it’s amazing. You’re with the people you care about the most as much as you can, and you have the best times of your life with them. You go on trips, laugh a whole lot, do the most random of things together, and you love. You love each other, you love the trips, the laughing, everything. But what’s most important is that you don’t love it because the trips are to the most exotic places, or because the jokes are particularly funny, or even because the excursions are really that fun. The reason why you love it, is because of the people. It’s in those brief moments that you don’t think you’re ever going to remember, that you’ll end up cherishing for the rest of your life. These are your friends, this is your life, and every moment you have with them is everything.
The most truthful thing I’ve ever heard in my life is that friends are the family you choose. Many times if we would’ve had a choice we would lead very different lives from the ones we currently are forced to. If we have very unsatisfying, terribly modest lives, we dream of lives of luxury and constant leisure. And if everything comes easy and we’ve never been able to make any decision for ourselves because everything was scheduled for us and simultaneously automatically paid for, we yearn for a life of our own where every moment was tailor made for the lives we wish to hold. But dreams such as this, of living complete opposite lives that we think are the most desirable, never quite come true. We are forced to come into this world with at least one kind of fate, the fate that awaits us for at least eighteen years legally, that is merely an effect of existence and not a conscious decision. But maybe, just maybe if you’re lucky, you could be granted with the most perfect family. Maybe you will be lucky enough to choose the best people to be a very significant part of your life.
In these cases you’ll be lucky enough to spend even a day with such a person or persons, much less a lifetime. But if you’re really lucky and you’re willing to take a chance, and open your heart however difficult it may be, each day you open your heart more, is one more day you have with them. Of course it’s going to hurt. And in some cases more often than not, it’s going to fucking hurt. But at the same time, if it never did, it would not have been worth it.
In those cases, the ones that are definitely more often than not, you just have to hurt for a while. You have to understand that love is about sacrifice. The most intense and deepest kind of love is agape, sacrificial love, in which you’d give everything, even you’re life, for another. And when you make the commitment of loving someone you are ultimately making a pledge of yourself to do whatever is asked of you to better this person or this other person’s life. And so, whether it will break your heart for a year or constantly hurt for fifty years, the bottom line is that you love your friends. If loving your friends entails you having to let them go, then you must without question or complain.
Being someone’s friend means loving them completely and as unconditionally as humanly possible. So enjoy your time together. Make your love known to each other, and always, always laugh a ton. Because if you can do all this, and bear the desperate sorrow that inevitably goes along with loving someone, you will always remember and cherish your time together. Which is what the curious thing called friendship has always been about.

To Be Loved.

For my sister.

It’s nice to be loved. And while it is quite important to hear it even at least once in a while, it’s really nice sometimes just to know it. There are a lot of people who never get to experience that kind of thing, and for that I truly pity them. For it is what makes us human, loving and being loved.
She knew she really cared about this man. This man who came into her life at a time when she least expected it. It was the lowest point in her life and he had no idea. He had no idea about her past relationship and how much it had scarred her. About the many pills she had to take just to cope with the desperate sorrow she felt every day due to the unidentifiable feeling of entrapment caused by her terrible relationship. About the severe pain she had single-handedly caused those closest to her. About the friendships she had ruined forever. All he knew was her, and for some strange reason loved her.
They had met by a strange coincidence of fate. He was single, she was single, and they had mutual friends who happened to be a couple. The couple introduced them and for some reason he fell for her. They talked about their idea of the perfect date. A conversation strange for any man and woman who barely knew each other she thought. But she told him anyway. It would start with the hour drive into the city, San Francisco. She had never lived in a real city, and never really had any sort of strong desire to. The only strong desire she had ever felt was to feel normal again, and dare she even think it, happy. But she loved to take trips, and visiting cities were always good trips. She and her perfect date would walk around the Pier for a few hours seeing the sights she had seen so many times, and as the evening was coming to a close and the sun was on its way down they’d have dinner on the pier. And what made it perfect was that she’d know that it was all for her. For once in her life, she wouldn’t be doing something for someone else. She wouldn’t be the typical self sacrificing person that she always felt she had to be. She could for once, for a glimmer of a moment, be a tiny bit selfish something she’d never had the opportunity to ever be. He gave her a half smile after he heard this and she felt embarrassed and turned, shying away from him. He turned to her and said, I think that sounds like a very nice, very perfect date. She felt genuinely pleased by his comment and almost, for a split second, normal.
A week later the two of them would go on their first official date. He would pick her up from home and begin to drive in the direction of the freeway that would take them to the city. She would question where exactly they’d be going and he’d answer with a passing comment saying, “I just thought it would be nice to have dinner on the pier tonight.” She’d smile and know that she was totally capable of falling in love with this man. She knew that while he had given her the capacity to fall in love again, she gave him the ability to make her dreams come true.