@ the end of December....

So much is possible in two tiny days. And in two days, we can become someone new, we can change a life, we can change our own lives. We can put up a Christmas tree, and take it down. We can see family, and we can break away. We can sit on our own, and we can sit with someone we love. We can get engaged, we can wonder where life is leading us, and we can wonder if everything will work out. We can wonder where the next few months will bring us, or we can wonder about the next few years, and even after that. I have no idea where I'll be next year, if I'll be married, or in another city. I have no idea where I'll be in five years, or in ten, and that is why life is so damn interesting and terrifying all at once.

I think so much we sit back and just wait for everything to work out, and we take the phrase, "if it's meant to be," too much to heart. I very much believe that phrase, yet I also believe that we must go out there and grab the things we want. I believe very much in expecting the best from everyone, whether or not they can achieve it, it makes a person work harder and become better if we have a goal in mind. I believe in chasing dreams, in not holding yourself back, whatever that may mean individually. I believe that sometimes life isn't so much about memories, but more about moments, in which you felt a certain way, an emotion that you hold on to, of how you felt, and what you felt, and why you felt it. My life has been very much that way, it has been a collection, not of memories, but rather of emotions that I felt at certain moments. It's about knowing how to say goodbyes and yet still being able to say hellos. It's about feeling like someone has just crushed your heart, and feeling like you are flying. Life is about the emotions, that's what makes us distinct, human. Without emotions, we are nothing, we aren't living.

I had a moment on Christmas, when the boy I love more than anything in the world, the young man that stole my heart at 18, got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. There was a moment, when two distinct worlds flashed before me, a world with him, and a world without, and there was no question of my answer, never any doubt. There was a moment when I knew exactly how I felt and why I felt it. And I said yes, because my emotions spoke for me, knowing exactly what my heart wants.

I have so many emotions in my mind tonight and have been for the last few days, and I think that's good, at least for me, that's how I know I am feeling, living, loving. And as I look down at this stunning ring on my finger, I can't help but to imagine everything with him, every emotion, every moment, every memory. We have built this life, and we have seen each other through everything, and I know down the road, our wedding will be beautiful, our life memorable and perhaps one day I'll look back and read this and smile, remembering exactly how I felt, and exactly why I felt it, listening to music, next to my white Christmas tree, in this apartment in our city, at the end of December.

Settle

I can't sleep and after having been deprived internet for a week, I felt a very huge pull to this blog, this 4am in the morning. I'm not exactly sure what I feel or why I feel it, and suddenly I'm so unsteady. The answers never seem easy anymore and every day, it seems that life is harder and harder, that we have to make tougher decisions than the day before, that we must fight find the right thing, even if we have no idea what that may be. I wonder sometimes when balance will return to the way I live, when I will stop trading things I think I liked for things that I'm not sure if I can like again. This six months of my life have tested me... beyond anything I have ever felt. And while it may look like I have come out on the other side unscathed, it is quite the opposite. There are scars, there are hugely open and unhealed scars, of the places that have tested me life in the last half year, and they are wounds that will take some time to heal, wounds that will always be with me a little bit from now on. I can't even begin to describe the roller coaster of emotions I have been on this year and as I look back, this has been one of the hardest years of my entire 23 years of life. All you have to do is read my back blogs starting in May and see the journey, though journey seems to have too much of a positive connotation, but rather perhaps a road of lessons is better coined.

And there tonight lays my empty apartment on the islands. With it's balcony, and tile floors. And a very large part of me misses it, a very large part of me has grown very accustomed to life there, and while the cons outweigh the pros, I was at a point where I was at peace with it all, and somehow my little apartment overlooking Kalakaua avenue took me away from it all. A big part of me is still left in Hawaii, whether I like it or not. My parents, who I have grown close to all over again, my one and only ever little convertible, my first apartment paid for on my own, my office, my jamba juice and starbux. I did build a life there, and though I hate the hot year-round and the beauocracies of Hawaii are my biggest pet peeve, I still have a part there. I did have my own little place there, however removed it might have been.

There are moments when I wonder if I am giving up the right things and if once again, am I trading it all too early? Am I making the right choice and if so, why do I feel like I'm letting so many down? I hate that I have to make the choice, I hate that I can't have the best of both worlds, but I don't think that's entirely possible. and maybe it shouldn't be. All I know is that I have a very different lifestyle than most of the people in my life, and sometimes, I feel so alone, so out of touch with most of the people in my life. Lost in the shuffle, with no one to really feel the pain with me.

And in my young life, I have endured this lonely lost-ness before, this unsurity, this moment of weakness when I don't know where to turn. It's happened numerous occasions in my young life and while I am no stranger to it, I am definitely no where used it yet and every time, I look back on the past experience and wonder how I made it through. Sometimes I wonder if I would have been different if I had had more of a conventional upbringing, or if no matter what I went through in life, this is how I would end up. How much does nature affect nurture and vice versa?

So I sit here at 5 in the morning, in the cold rainy Northwest, the place I know call home, both physically and emotionally at the moment and I can't help but hope the day will bring peace. And I think back to Hawaii, to my parents who I have so immensely enjoyed laughing with, having dinner with, just being with, to my sleeping little apartment with the balcony I've always wanted. This is going to take some getting used to, some adjusting to be back here. And while this is home, I've been so unsettled for so long, so pushed through the motions, one plane ride after another, that I'm going to have to find peace yet again, and I'm going to have to settle myself and my soul.

It's ironic that my life has turned out the way it has, because it seems that every time I get settled somewhere, something else comes up that makes me make a change and from that consequent change, come this period of resettling and of wondering if I made the right choice. It's been that way my whole life, when I moved to Portland on my own for college, when I switched schools, when I moved in with Nick and gave up my little pink apartment, when I moved to Hawaii, and now when I've "moved" back.

But life must go on, and as much as we sometimes need it to, the world will not stop for our panic. It will not wait for us to find peace in order to go on again, and so we must live and breathe and move on all at once. And while I feel so very exposed, lonely, lost, unsure, scarred, pained, and unready, I must move on to settle myself once again and find peace in my soul. Only time will tell but for now, here is yet another change, yet another move, yet another step along the way.

The Journey Home

I just woke up from the best dream I've had in so very long and suddenly, I know that everything is falling into place how it should and I know that it's right. For so long I've been toying with what is right to do, with trying to figure out in my mind if it really is right for me to move back to Portland and if I'm doing it for the right reasons, it's something that on the surface, I feel like I should do, but down deep I have been struggling with it, for many reasons.

And yet, here tonight, at 2 in the morning, as I lay here thinking about the beautiful and so very vivid dream I just had, a dream about my city, about meeting old friends, about memories of my first year there in Portland, about making new memories, about moments that slip away anywhere else but that become so very beautiful there. I dreamt of walking the park blocks, of the apartment buildings, of that feeling of just being there, of knowing that's where you fit. I dreamt of the waterfront, of my old apartment, of those pink walls, of weekends at home, of real weekends, of peace, of being settled, of walking the streets and feeling it under my feet. I dreamt of the rain, washing down and down outside, of the beauty of the spring, and the glory of the fall. I dreamt of the feeling of being loved, of waking up everyday and knowing I'm where I'm supposed to be, of adventures, of finding new places, of growing up, of the smell of the city air, of the Pearl, of driving to the coast, and dancing in the rain. I dreamt of photos, lots and lots of photos, of memories, of seeing the city grow, of weekends with family, of moments alone, to sit and look around and find peace in where I am. I dreamt of all those first memories, the first days of college, the first friends, the first loves, the first nights alone at my apartment, the first pieces of that life that I built, all on my own.

Portland is one of those places that is down deep under my skin, that fits, that feels comfortable. Its a city that is big enough to keep your distance, but that lets you run into random people on the street. It's a place that holds my heart and holds who I am. So as I start packing up my life again ... I find myself on the journey home, on the journey to where I want to be, the journey to who I need and want to be.

Struggle Along

I have sat here a hundred times, looked out over this place, over this city, if you can call Honolulu a "city," it's really more of a town that outgrew itself and never quite caught up from the rush of the 1970's when tourists flocked here, when it was such an old way of life, the real "Hawaiian" way of life. And this city, this island has never really caught up with the rest of the states, always a step behind, always struggling to catch up. And here I sit once again, looking out over the balcony of my 11th floor balcony, over the famed strip of Kalakaua, the road that winds through the famous coastline of Waikiki, and I have to laugh at myself at home I ended up here, at how my life has taken this path.

This was never a place I wanted to be, never a place that I dreamed of going to, never a place that interested me at all really. But it was a place that happened to me by happen-stance and by coincidence and by whatever is meant to happen in my life. But I am realizing more and more everyday that my life is not that of normality, or of predictability. Every stage in my life, I never would have thought I would have ended up there, and I have never been able to look ahead and predict where I'll be in 2, 5, or 10 years. And the beautiful part is that I don't really want to. And while that drives me absolutely insane to not know what is going to happen, I love it too because it makes me enjoy the ride, it makes me find out more about myself and it makes me want to find out where I'll be next.

My life might change in a few weeks, or it might not, but either way, I have posed the difficult questions and I have gotten my answers to them. I can move on, with what I want my future to be. I can move on to the next thing and know that this step in the journey happened for a reason, that this step was needed for me to move forward. And whether or not I'm back in Portland in the new year, I'm doing okay, I'm making my way through the crises, through the uncomfortable and devastating moments, through the heat, through the uncertainty and I'm okay. And while I want so much in my life right now, I want to be working back home, I want to move forward in my relationship, I want to pass my LEED tests and trudge forward with my NCIDQ, I want to save money for a trip to Europe and Morocco and I want to pay off all my credit cards. I want all of that, but I know that it might not happen right away, it might not happen when I think it will, but that's okay, because I know it will all happen eventually and if I've learned anything in my 23 years, it's that life happens on it's own schedule, on its own timeframe and we are just here along for the ride, hoping to just make the best of it while we struggle along.

Power

What is it exactly that makes people be unfaithful to those they love? How does it start exactly and what is going through their minds? It seems in the past week or so it's been a hot topic, both in the media and personally so many comments have been made about men cheating on their wives in my office, a topic that is unfortunately not rare with the men in that I work with. Maybe it's just me, maybe it's because my whole life I was fairly sheltered from that reality of the world, that I was surrounded by faithful men my whole life, but I didn't realize how rampant this is in our society, not really until this year. How can you do that, come home and pretend like it's all okay? How could you do that to someone you love, or at least loved at one time, enough to be with them, to marry them? How has our society made that so common place, so non-important?

It's been a topic on my mind a lot this week and as I think about it, it's yet another thing that I feel like is so wrong with our world. And I know a lot of people, both friends and acquaintances and colleagues that have cheated on their significant others. And some of them are just bad guys, some of them lost my respect the instant I met them, but some of them are good friends of mine, some of them are girls, some are guys, some it was just one kiss, and others it was a full on affair. And most of my friends were in situations where they really did love their significant other, but cheated anyway. Other colleagues have been cheating for years and years and act like that's just normal, that's just how life works. Either way, when you love someone, and you care about them and their well being, how could you hurt them so deeply, how could you be with someone else and then come home to your wife or girlfriend and live with yourself?

I can't imagine keeping something like that from someone I love, let alone finding out that someone I love had been keeping that from me. And I have to believe that if that happened, if I found out something like that, I would walk away right then and there. And when the truth comes out, why don't these women leave? Why do they stay for years and years in marriages when their husbands are sleeping with every girl they can find? Whey do these women condone this, to keep a marriage together or not, I don't know if that is forgivable, and even if you can forgive, can you forget? And every night when you go bed with that person, you'd be wondering if he is thinking about her. I don't know how you could get over that, how you could stay?

It seems this topic is so ordinary to some, so openly acceptable and I have found that colleagues of mine have just been so nonchalant in expressing to me how they are unfaithful to their wives, and why me? Why tell me that, why make those comments and I think the reason is this: these men that cheat, these men that are unfaithful, for whatever reason, have no respect for me, no respect for women in general, they are selfish and pompous, they are men that don't have the courage to live a life worthy of respect from others. And they sometimes they look at me like any of their other girls, sometimes I know what they are thinking and then I realize that unlike the other girls, there is a part of them that is scared of me because they know me, what I can do and what I stand for. I scare them because unlike all those other girls who give themselves up so easily, I stand for something more, I have more respect for myself not to stoop to that level and I have the power that they wish they had.

Every Moment

There are so many moments in my life that I remember like they were yesterday. Some were good, some bad, some were unexpected, some exhilarating. And as I sit here tonight in this apartment that was supposed to be everything I ever wanted, I feel all those moments all over again. I have been especially reminiscent today, especially remembering all those tiny moments that changed my life in some way or another.

I have learned so much in the past year, and I think I have changed considerably in who I am and what I believe because of what has happened in my life. There are no answers to exactly why things happened the way they happened, but they did happen for some specific reason and I sit here tonight for the same specific reason.

There are so many things that my life has showed me this year, so many things that seem to be pulling me in your direction. So many moments lying here at night, looking out over the thousands of lights, over the dark ocean toward where you are and needing you to just love me, to want me forever, to know that I'm the one, to know that I am worth the risk, worth the adventure, worth everything we could have together.

I can't help but feel such a mix of emotions tonight. I'm unsettled, afraid, anxious, restless, emotional, tired, and calm. But the one emotion that conquers them all, is love. All I need tonight is for you to love me, to know that I am worth every second, every risk, every moment.

Home, For Good

There are moments in our lives when all reason goes away, when we have to go by what we feel, a moment when suddenly for no reason at all, you know exactly how you feel or what you want. I've had a few of those moments in the past few months and it truly is from a guidance beyond us that brings us to those tiny fractions of time. The first time I really felt this way was the moment I knew that I loved Nick beyond anything I had ever known, that I wanted to be with him, that I wanted to stay with him forever, that no matter what happens, my love for him will never change. That moment was a moment in Korea, a moment in my beautiful hotel room, in a country I adore, looking out the window over beautiful and raging Seoul and suddenly I knew for no reason at all, that I had to be with him, that he was my future, he was my soul, my entire heart. That moment changed everything, because at the time we had been taking some time to figure things out, to work things out in our own lives, to see where it would lead us. And in that tiny and most significant moment, I felt everything that I needed to feel, and I felt every emotion that was possible.

And then here last night, staring out at the city in front of me from my 11th floor apartment in the city of dreams for so many, in this city of tradition and palm trees, and I looked out over the darkest ocean towards that home that I have finally found, so many miles away across the ocean. And suddenly, at 10 o'clock on an insignificant Thursday night, I realized that I want to be back there in Portland, that if that means waiting a little longer till I can do it, I want to be there, I want that to be my home. I want to walk outside everyday and smile knowing that this is home, knowing that the grey sky overhead will always soothe me, knowing that I made the right choice, knowing that's where family is, where friends are, where love is, were home is. And it's moments like that that everything becomes clear.

So as I sit here tonight yet again, staring out at the tiny lights across a dark city, out across the dark ocean toward that city that holds my heart... I know that soon I will be home, soon I will walk those streets again, soon I will smile because all this will be over and soon I will rest at night knowing that I am home, really home, not just for a day, but for good.

Never Drifting

There are people in our lives that drift in and out, people that mean nothing and people that mean everything. There are people that we meet by random, people that we click with, people that become part of us, people that cross our minds more often than not, people that things remind us of them, people that can make a difference in your life. And sometimes life poses us with questions, with choices, with decisions and sometimes it all seems so overwhelming, too much to handle, too much to go through to get to the other side. But we must always remember that when life puts us in that position, when it gives us more than we think we can handle, we must remember that there are always those people we love, people that love us, people that are in our lives forever because we understand each other, because we have hopes for each other's lives, that we can make those decisions, that we are strong enough. And we are strong enough because we have those people that will support us, people that will walk with us and hold our hand if we need it. We have those people that drift in and out of our lives, but I am lucky enough to have many that have never drifted away and that stand by my side always...

Holidays

As we approach December and the holiday season, filled with memories, with family, with those we love, with those that we miss, we embark on yet another December, another Thanksgiving weekend, another Christmas, another new year around the corner. And this year has been one of learning experiences, of huge firsts for me, of huge moments and of small ones, of one day trips to Oregon and back, of finding out once and for all that true love will hold true, of losing friends, of losing family. And as I look back on the last year, I have perhaps lost just as much as I have gained this year. Sometimes I think back, four years ago, to my freshman year in college, to when life was so simple, so exciting, so easy. That was a year that I definitely gained more than I lost, and I so sublimely happy. That was one of the best years of my life, I fell in love, lived on my own, met so many new and interesting people, fell in love with my city, and found true peace in myself and in who I was becoming.

It's interesting to sit here tonight and think that last year at this time I was at home asleep next to the boy I love, wanting to spread my wings and fly and go out and find myself again. It's interesting to look back at the moments in my life where I really found what I was looking for, they were always moments that I had lost something, that made me look at what I had and moments when I really had to search within myself to find the answer. And here I am again, in one of those moments. But there is one thing I do know, one thing that I want more than anything else I've ever wanted, is to be there at home next to that boy that is the only person in this world that I could spend every second of every day with, that boy that pulled me out of one of my moments of loss when I met him, a boy that I have seen grow into a man, a boy that knows me inside and out and that knows everything about me, and loves me unconditionally.

We take so much for granted in our lives and if you would have told me last year at this time where I'd be and what I'd be doing right now, I would have jumped at the chance, thinking that this was my moment, that this was the dream. Little did I know that I was already living the dream right where I was, curled on the sofa of a cold apartment with the boy I love.

And so as the holidays fast approach, and we are coming up on yet another December, another new year, all I want to do to bring in the new year is to sit in our little chinese restaurant and look that boy in the eyes and say "I love you, for another year." And that is what the holidays are all about, being with those people that you love the most, and being able to hold their hand and look outside at the rain and the cold bare branches and smile, knowing that you are home and with those people you love the most.

Alone

I have so missed seeing the rain pound against my windows and the way it looks when the sky is as dark as the buildings. And the way that the clouds roll in and you know that rain will be pouring all day long. I love the way the sky darkens and the rain comes pouring from above, the way that it smells, the way that it hits your face, the way that it makes you feel. I love the way everything glistens when wet, and how suddenly, everything is clean again, and it's almost as if the rain has washed everything bad away.

I have spent the morning curled up in my chair watching and enjoying the rain, reading a book that always takes me out of my world for a time and makes me believe in magic, in happy endings, in love. And even after reading it 3 times before, Twilight still manages to capture me, it still holds me together and it still pulls me so deep into another world, leaving all my own problems behind.

Everything is flying at me from all sides lately, and I'm more unsure of everything than ever before. Maybe I shouldn't even try to go back to Portland, maybe I shouldn't even try to go back to the relationship that seems so strained. Maybe I should really just stay here, endure it, and then move somewhere else on my own, somewhere where it rains, where the fall colors change. Maybe I should just go on alone and leave all this behind, because it only hurts me anymore. I do know that I will always need the rain, it gives me such a peaceful feeling to see it rain like this, to see the clouds move slowly over the city, dumping water so gracefully down upon us all.

And here I sit, the rain is done, the heat is back, and I am alone, as always.

Pull me back up

Sometimes I look in the mirror and wonder if I'm the same person I used to be, if I'm even any part of that little naive girl that grew up in the desert, that little girl that knew nothing of the world except for that little Saudi city, of the gulf, or vacations to
Paris and Cypress and Amsterdam. And sometimes all I want so badly to is go back to that world, not the physicality of it, but the emotional innocence and ease of being a child, especially the child that I was there. To go back to when the hardest moments were when we wondered if the boy next door liked me, when the choice was to walk to school or get a ride. And sometimes when I try to remember, to put myself there in my mind, I can't and that scares me so very much. Sometimes I feel like that part of me is drifting from my mind, like a loved one lost when one day you wake up and can't remember their touch, their feel, their scent. I am forgetting the scents of the desert, the round about that the hub cabs all flew off the passing cars, I am forgetting the view of herds of camels on the horizon, and the rush against your skin of heat and sand mixed.

Anymore, all I feel is the weight of choice, the heaviness of decisions, of indecision. I want so badly to feel the lightness of happiness, or love. To feel that moment when I know that I am special, set apart from everyone else. I want so badly to just let my life happen, that I could have what I need and not have to go beyond that. And I sit here, alone, and wonder if this is how I'll end up in the end, because I'll never get the entirety of what I want from anyone. And someday I'll sit here and look in the mirror at the girl that ended up being so far from who I thought I'd be.

I'm so tired from the energy I exert, from trying to be that girl that everyone thinks I am, rather than the girl I used to be. I'm so exhausted from carrying the weight of it all, so worn out from always having to be the one to make the effort in life, in love, in family. I'm stressed and overwhelmed and lonely, I'm too tired to even cry, it will take too much energy I don't have anymore. And everything that I thought would work out, seems to be falling apart and nothing feels right, not here, not there, not anywhere.


And as we approach the holidays, I don't even have that family to rely on, no big family christmas, no fire places, no family dinners. Maybe it's because I was young, but as a little girl I always remember family getting together, I remember my uncles, my aunts, speaking to each other. I remember grandma's house at the holidays and I remember always feeling that warmth from being there. That however, was before my family stopped speaking to each other, before everyone moved away, before I grew up and felt the weight of responsibility, before I felt the pains of love. That was back when life was simple, when I didn't have to do everything on my own, when I could simply play with my Playmobil and act out the drama that is really happening in my life.

I don't know how much more I can take of this, and sometimes I think, maybe I should just break off every tie I have back home, stay here and just work and live on my own because that might be simpler. Everything is weighing me down, and I'm sinking by trying to get back there because there is no one on the other end to guide me back to the surface... no one is even trying to pull me back up.

Rights For All: Making a Change

Facebook has been littered with comments the last couple of days from both my gay and straight friends regarding the law that didn't pass in Maine this week pertaining to same-sex marriage. And this week, as a good friend of Nick and I's has set the date for his second wedding for just a little over a month away. This will be his second marriage, the first that happened last year, to an 18 year old girl he had known for 3 months and married in 6 months. This time around he has known the girl for about 7 and is getting married at the end of the year. And as I sit here tonight and think about it, about how wrong I think it is... about how he is allowed to do this, make the same mistakes over and over, how he is allowed to make these big decisions with no punishment at all for wrong choices, without any consequences and there are couples all over the world, couples that have loved each other for years, some for decades and many that have had their relationships last longer than so many many straight couples.

If you heard about two couples, one couple that had been breaking up and getting back together for months at a time. A couple that met and married in just a few months, a couple with no real respect for each other, a couple that are getting married in Vegas just for the fun of it, for the party.

And yet on the other side of the country is a couple that has been together for years and years, decades of commitment, decades of true and real honest love. It's a couple that has weathered the storms together, that has made a life together, that has held each other's hand through everything, that have been committed citizens and giving friends, tax payers and voters.

Which would you say is more deserving of a certificate to announce their commitment to each other? Which would you say is more deserving of that choice, that option of marriage?

I am and always will be a firm believer in gay marriage for a number of reasons, but the first and foremost reason being that we are no one to say that they don't deserve that as much as we do. I'm not saying that churches have to open their doors for these marriages, or that religion has to play a role in this at all. So what is so wrong with having a legal document for a couple to exchange vows and commit themselves to one another? How is that wrong?

And the older I get and the more I understand, the more I see how ignorant our country is, how close minded, how unwilling we are to change. From gay marriage, to women's equal rights, to sustainability and environmental protection. When are we going to understand that we are ruining everything?

I sit here tonight and ask you... regardless of your religion, regardless of race or gender or sexuality, how is it legal for people to get married with a snap of finger as long as you're of age and straight, without any meaning or love involved, but when a gay couple in love, devoted to each other isn't allowed even the choice.

And so tonight, as Facebook is a-buzz with this chatter, with comments from people all around the U.S., gay and straight, male and female, hopefully at some point soon we can make a change and someday, we will be a country with rights for all.

All the Pieces

Somewhere in between the rain today and my favorite season of Sex and the City, I think I have made my decision. And while I'm not exactly sure of the details, I just feel like everything is pointing me toward it. I just feel it inside, that this is the next step for me, that this is where I need to go, that this is what is in store for me.

It's something about those things that I love, waking up from a nap to rain, watching that show that has taken me a week to get through to my favorite season 6 episodes, from a friend telling me good luck and to "follow my heart and the rest will follow." It's playing hooky from work today to take this much needed day to myself. And while I'm not exaclty sure of how it will work, I have decided that one way or another, whether it's this offer or something else, I will make it back to the NW very soon... and whether that means I give up some things to make it there or whether it all works perfectly, I'm willing to take that chance.

And I will take that chance for me, and I will make that choice for me. While other people should be able to state their opinion, I am going to make this decision on my own, without outside advice. I believe in myself enough to do that and everyone else should too. Sometimes you just need a day at home to nap, to watch season 6 of Sex and the City, to stand on your balcony on the rain, and to think think and contemplate.

So come next week when I make this decision, I will be making it for me and I will be making it based on how I feel today. Somehow I just feel all the pieces falling into place.

Me, and Only Me

There are moments in life when we are tested. When we have nothing in our control, when we must hurt others or hurt ourselves. There are moments that define us, there are moments that make us the people we are, and that show that to the world. I don't want to be defined by what I didn't do, by the dreams I didn't chase, by the things I didn't go after, by the risks I didn't take.

And here in this moment, it's this decision in front of me entirely in my control and yet, the decision I make will hurt some of those close to me whichever way I choose. So what do you do? Which road do you take? I have never been a person to let someone tell me no when I know it's right, and when something is being dangled out in front of me like this, I can't help but be seduced by it.

I think that sometimes you have to rely on your instincts, and you have to go for things that may not be guaranteed but that will make you happy. And while I may be leaving stability here, I am gaining so much more by taking this risk. I am getting passion for what I love, experience worth more that I ever could have here. I am getting closer to home, I am getting work with someone I greatly admire, my mentor. And I am being asked to do this, of my own accord, without help from anyone else. I am getting this opportunity because of who I am and not who my father is and that means more to me than anything else. And while I am risking security in the meanwhile, am gaining everything that I seem to need right now.

I need to just breathe by myself for a bit and figure this out. I need to not let everyone else's voices into my head because this decision needs to be for me. I need to figure it out without anyone else because it seems when I ask for someone else to listen they just all make it worse for me.

I just need to take a week to think, to realize what I really want, to realize what I really need. And I need to do it for myself and no one else. I can't keep pleasing everybody in my life because I'm giving up what I want and need in the process. So as this week goes on and I have some tough choices ahead, I have to believe in the end, that I will make the right ones, for me and for my future.

No one

We grow up and we're told to chase our dreams, to go after what we want, what we believe in. We are told to run free, to find ourselves, to leap. And then we get to this point, when the decisions we have to make are tough ones, when we must choose one path or another. We get to a crossroads where we must either make a decision for ourselves or one for every one else. We put ourselves into positions then that break our hearts, forcing us to give up what we want for what we should do.

I hate the word "should," because it seems like we do what we "should" do more than what we want to or need to do. Sometimes there are things in life that we must just take a risk with, but when we go to take that risk, we are criticized, we are told that we shouldn't do that.

In the light of a very tough situation this week, I find myself completely alone again. And the people that I thought would be there for me to lean on, are the people that are yet again disappointing me the most. Sometimes I just wish I had someone in my life that was there unconditionally, that made no judgment, and just listened to me when I needed someone to be there. I'm so tired of people telling me that I need to this and do that and it's going to cost this and that, and all the while, I already know all of that. I am a smart and accomplished young woman yet no one in my life seems to give me any credit. I can handle it, I just want someone there to be a phone call when I need it, someone to just listen and not give me what they think and how I should do it. I need to do it on my own, I just want so badly to just talk to someone, and have them listen, nothing else.

We grow up being told to go after what we want, chase those dreams and find something we love to do and when we get to that point, when I am here, at the choice between a job that's going no where and a real chance to chase my dreams, everyone seems to be against me and I'm wondering if the choice I make will be the right one. I wish so badly that the people in my life were more romantic, more idealistic, more positive. I wish so badly that I had that one person to rely on to help me chase my dreams and to support me instead of telling me what I should do, and why I should do it.

I am at a point in my life right now where I am so filled with doubts once again. And after this weekend, when I should have been on top of the world, I feel even more lost. How am I ever supposed to leap and chase those dreams that I have when no one in my life can support me and believe in me? How am I ever supposed to take those leaps when no one in my life will have an open enough mind to understand me?

One of a Kind

I sit here tonight, just as unsure of what's in store for me as I was last night though I am much more at peace. I know that we are all trying to figure out life as we live it and I feel like I need to take this if it comes through, because regardless of the risk, it's what will put me ahead, it's what will make me the person I want to become and it's because I did it on my own, of my own accord. I want to do it for me, for us, to get back to where I want to be. And I want to do it to prove a point, to prove that I am worth the risk, that this is what I'm good at, that this is what I love.

I don't know for sure where I'll be in two months, or two years or ten. But know that I want it to be with you, and I know that might seem scary, but trust me, if we're in it together, it will just be a big adventure, and a lifelong journey together, chasing dreams together and fulfilling them holding each other's hand.

I am at a point in my life where I need to leap, I need to take the risk if I can, and I need to go after this because it's good for me, it's good for us and it's good for my career. Know always that while I may roam for a while, I will always come home to you and if you can just give me some time to roam, if you could roam with me for a bit and let me be that part of me, I promise you that we'll end up back in our home, back in that place that we both love. I promise we'll be okay, I promise that I still want all those things I've always wanted with you. I promise that I want forever and I promise you that I will say yes whenever that question comes around to being asked because I know inside that we are meant to be and while I may need some time to get to the aisle, I will be there someday next to you.

I want to come home to you everyday, I want to see you everyday and smile, I want to go to dinner with you and hold you at night. And while we may not quite be back to that normal yet, we are getting closer, we are slowly catching up to where we used to be. And we are getting there, it may not look like it just yet, but I promise we are. We're getting there and we will be back there again, very soon I promise. Just hold on to me, just hold on to us and believe, believe that this is all just making us that much stronger.

I don't know many more answers tonight than I did yesterday, but I do know this: I know that we will be okay and I know that someday very soon I will wake up everyday again seeing you and I will come home everyday to you. I know that someday soon we will laugh and everything will work itself out. I promise... just believe my love, believe in us, believe in what we have, because it really is one of a kind.

No answers

I don't know what I'm in store for today... but I sit here in the middle of the night unable to fall back asleep and wonder what's going to happen. And I may not even find out today, I may not get that answer, but I want it so badly. I want so badly to have my dreams come true, I want so badly to find out where I'm headed, today and in life.

The streets of Honolulu are empty tonight and the traffic lights are all green... and I can't help but wonder, are mine all green right now and I just can't see it? I'm nervous, excited, scared and everything in between. I don't know anything anymore and I don't have any idea where I'm headed and that drives me crazy.

And tonight, I am anxious and nervous and wondering what the day will bring. I'm wondering where I'll be in the months to come, and how my life will turn out. All I have right now are questions filling my head, and I don't have any of their answers.

Choices

I think that there are moments in life where you get to a point where you must define who you are. I have realized that I am a girl that prefers to run free rather than be tied down, a girl that has a strong mind and even stronger soul. I am a girl that is strong and centered and motivated, but also that is contemplative. I am strong willed, strong headed and I believe what I believe. I am as defined in the season finale of season 2 of Sex and the City, a "katie girl," a girl who runs free and all I want is someone to want to run free with me.

Sometimes I need to leap, sometimes I need to think but I will never understand how someone can make decisions without thinking of those around them that they will affect. Life is about making choices, and in those decisions we must make, we must first realize who we are and what we stand for, and then we must choose what to do, considering ourselves first, but also considering how it will affect everyone in our lives, how it will look to them. And while that may not be the romantic notion, it is important. Consideration of others is what defines our lives, it's what sets us apart from everyone out there that couldn't care less. It's what makes us good human beings, what makes us good friends, lovers, people.

When we forget to consider others, when we write off what everyone else thinks, as nice as that may sound, it makes us those people that the rest of us don't admire. There are people in my life that have made very big decisions, and choices that I don't agree with, and while I don't agree with them, as long as they are considerate, as long as they consider how it's affecting everyone else, I will support them. It's the choices that are made purely in the moment, without consideration of others that I will not support. It's those decisions that I don't think should be admired and it's those decisions that will hurt everyone again in the long run.

I am not a simple girl, and I don't have the same dreams and admirations that other girls do. I really never have. And being a "katie girl" means that I see the world a little bit differently, not better or worse, but just differently. I have made many decisions in my life, many that people did not agree with, but in the end, they all realized that I made those decisions by considering everyone else, by listening to their arguments, but listening. By being considerate to what they have to say.

And I'm not saying by any means that I am perfect or that my choices have been perfect, but I have shown consideration always. And it's when those in my life won't show that, that I can't help but take offense. So I keep my mouth shut, but inside all I want to do is scream because that choice makes them one of those people, one of those people that cares only about themselves... one of those people that we already have too many of in this world.

So I will go on, I will be myself, I will be a "katie girl" and I will run free, make my own decisions, and live my own life and not say a word. But sometimes I'd like someone to understand me enough to not force me into thinking something I don't agree with. Sometimes I'd like someone to accept that I feel a certain way and to leave it at that. Sometimes I'd like someone to stand up for me, for who I am, for the person I'd like to think I've become. Sometimes all I want is someone to want me enough to run free with me, to hold onto me, to acknowledge my part in their lives.

Be There

I'll be there when the world starts to fall,
and though I may be an ocean away,
every time it rains, it will remind me of you.

I'll be there for all the years to come,
and we'll be happy,
I'll be there holding your hand and chasing our dreams.

I'll be the girl you believe in so much,
and I'll be her for you.
I'll be the woman I'm supposed to be,
and I'll be her for me.

I'll be there, someday we'll be there together,
listening to the rain,
and smiling because this will all be behind us.

Someday I'll be there again,
and I promise I won't ever leave.

When to Say No and When to Say Yes

Ever since I can remember I have loved the rain, even when I lived in the desert, I always fell in love with the random sprinkles of water that would flood the streets. It's always been a symbol for me, a symbol that soothed me, and that cleansed all the horrible things in the world for me. And now, in the midst of a world that I don't agree with, amidst things that are wrong, and deep in the middle of it, I need that rain to cleanse it even more.

I think that we must ask ourselves where we draw the line. Where do we stop and say no? Or do we go along with all that we don't agree with for the sake of everyone else around us? Do we just say yes, because it's easier than saying no?

I can't get myself to that point, I can't say yes when I should say no. I can't believe that the rest of the world is like this, I can't believe that men in general are like this, I can't believe that our world is so corrupt, because if I believe that, if I say yes because it's easier, then what hope do we have to change?

I can't stop believing in the world I know is there somewhere, I can't say yes to the wrong things. I won't. I won't condone the vulgarity, the insecurities, the inappropriateness and I won't let myself be looked at as a "thing" and not as the smart, successful young woman I will become. I still have more to say, more to do, more to be, and I am so much more than a prop, so much more that what they think I am.

And someday again, I will have plenty of rain, rain to cleanse everything and to start over fresh. I have learned where to draw the line, where I will say no and not be afraid to refuse something. I will not go past what I believe in and I'm not afraid to stand up for what I believe in. I know where the line is... and I know when to say no and when to say yes.

Blink

I am sitting here tonight, looking out at the view that I see every single day and I feel no connection, no inspiration to this place. I do however have hope, and faith, and I know that someday I will look back and this will seem so long ago, that someday I will look at pictures of this view and remember this feeling, remember wanting to leave, but also knowing that this place gave me a lot of the answers I really needed at the time. This is only a short period of my life, and in the span of things, nothing... because forever is a very long time.

I sit here and look out the windows tonight, missing you, missing you always. There is never a day that goes by that I don't think of you every second of every day, sometimes smiling, sometimes crying. I miss everything about our life and even though I just saw you just a couple of days ago, it seems like an eternity. And I know that I will always be with you, that we have our whole lives to live together and that this is just a short period of time in the span of things, even though it feels like forever. And I also know that while I want so badly to with you, I also know that "there is no rush, that forever is a very long time."

I have hope, and faith, and trust that something will work out for us. I know that we are meant to be together, forever, that I will wake up next to you for the rest of my life and so, in this however much longer we must wake up apart, I will roll over every morning and wish you were there next to me. And in this however much longer it takes to be back together, I will spend every second of every day thinking of you, smiling, crying, wishing. And as our song says, "as many times as I blink, I will think of you."

Today I Saw Hope

Tonight I lay here in this apartment that feels like my home, in a city that has made me who I am, after a day spent walking through showers of falling leaves, wearing scarves and jackets and gloves, eating at old time favorite restaurants, running into people I know in the streets of downtown, running errands with Nick, and just living, living and breathing and feeling... more than I've been able to do in a long time. Today was one of those days that inspired me again, that I could look around at this fabulously beautiful city and know that this is where my heart is and has always been, knowing that this city is where I truly belong, where I fit, where I feel my best, where I feel "home." It's taken me a very long time to get to this place in my life where I can honestly answer that question that I used to hate so very much, "Where are you from?" I would honestly answer that question now, knowing that when I say Portland, Oregon, that is really my home, really the place that is all my own, a place that I moved to when I was just 18 and a place that shaped these last 5 years of my life totally. I would answer that question like this, "I am from a city with more bridges than freeways, a city that you can get anywhere walking downtown in 20 minutes, a city that has the most beautiful fall foliage you've ever seen, the best blankets of snow in the winter, the most beautiful blooms in the spring and the most fantastic color green you've ever seen in the summer. It's a city that many in the world have never been, but a city that people fall in love with. It's a place that I call home, a place where my dearest friends are, the place that I learned to love and to live on my own. It's the place that I saw grow up around me these past few years. It's a city where you run into people you know all the time and where the environment truly is always put first. It's a city that has plug in stations on the side of the road for electric cars, solar powered parking meters and countless recycle bins. It's a place that makes feel the most like me, it's the place that I know I belong. It's home."

Many in my life would think right now because I don't particularly like living in Hawaii and that everything that has happened since my move in June, that I regret taking that chance, making that change. But in fact, the opposite is more true. I don't regret leaving Portland at all, I don't regret needing to make a change, I don't regret moving away from Nick, because I have learned numerous priceless lessons and countless questions to hard questions that I had been asking myself for a very long time. I needed to move away to realize what I had here, I had to leave in order to find out where my heart really was. I had spent my college years here, loving it, but also dreaming of where I would end up. I've spent my entire life trying to figure out where I belonged: was it the part of me that grew up in a foreign country or was it the girl that spent her adolescent years on Oregon? I struggled so much with where I was from, with what part of me I was going to become and I found the answer through a few months of changes, experiences and most importantly, through faith. It took me about a month after leaving to realize a few very important answers to questions I needed to answer for myself.

I realized that first and foremost, while I still have that part of me that's the little half-Saudi, half-American girl inside of me, I am an Oregonian through and through. I call Portland home, and while I may not live there forever, while I may go out and experience other places all over the world, I will call Oregon my home, I will always come back to this city that I love so very much and will feel at peace here, I will feel right here, I will find solace in this place. There is no other place in the entire world that I feel more comfortable, that I feel more like myself and no other place that I can take one look at the city and I am breathless because this city holds not only so many precious memories, but vast hopes for the future.

In realizing that Portland will always be home, I also realized that the relationship I had left there was still more important to me than I had given it credit to be. I had gotten so caught up in all that was happening, graduation, the thrill of someplace new, a new career, a new life, that I forgot to realize some of the most important things in our lives: love, faith, family, peace, friends, trust, loyalty, and faithfulness. And out of this change, Nick and I have grown separately and together in the most amazing way. And while it took me a very long time to get to this point in my life, I know that there are moments when we will fight, moments when we'll disagree, but all in all, I don't want to go through that with anyone else. This separation has made us both realize, very independently of each other's decisions, that we want to be together, that we want to go through life's moments together and ultimately, what we feel is true, honest and happy.

To say that the past 5 months have been an emotional roller coaster would be an understatement. And there are nights when I cry myself to sleep because I feel so helpless, so unable to make a change, so discouraged at what has been presented to me as to what the world is like. And never in my life have I felt more naive, more unaware of what goes on in our world and what horrible people are out there. My mentor and teacher told me last week after a wonderful and very encouraging phone call, she said "that while these wrong things that people do are indeed very wrong, we must endure it. But we must always know ourselves that while we must endure it, they are not okay." It's people like her, like Nick, like family and friends that spoke those words of encouragement and understanding.

And it's days like today, when a decision I made on a whim was perhaps one of the best decisions I've made in a very long time, that cleared my mind, that gave me hope, that gave me faith. The past month I have felt so lost, like all faith had been lost, all hope gone but today I stood at the Riverfront, and stared out across the bridges, at the falling sheets of leaves, at the beautiful place where it all began for me. This was after all the place I fell in love, the place I stayed my first night alone in my first apartment, the place where I made some of my first real decisions about life, where I've met friends that will be in my life forever, where I graduated college, where I've celebrated with friends and family and cried with friends and family. This is after all the place where, when I first moved here, used to take the streetcar down to the riverfront and sit for hours on a park bench over looking the river, under the cloudy overcast sky, with gloves and scarves on, and listen to music and just write. I would write about the day, about the world, about my future, about falling in love, about the city, about life. And today, I stood there again, in that same spot, and suddenly I knew, that the things that I always believed in still do exist, I might just have to work a little harder to get them. I stood there and realized that I am still that girl, writing about love and life and faith, that I am still that girl with dreams. And while those dreams may have changed from what they used to be, they will come true someday, I will make sure of that.

I stood there today in my spot, in the spot that used to make me feel so whole, so alive and I felt it again today. Somehow this time of year, this city and that spot make it all come true for me, and I saw hope today. I saw faith returning and I can't wait to see what comes next.

Heart Pounding

Sometimes I have this dream. Usually we are somewhere with a lot of people around, a theater or arcade or something and it's noisy and it's crowded and I've met you there. And you sit me down and tell me that you don't want me anymore, that I'm who you love anymore. And every time I have this dream, I wake up grasping for air, heart pounding, and horrified at the thought of that someday happening. What makes us know for sure that the person we love won't do that to us, what's holds to them really? A piece of paper, a wedding ring on our finger, a promise?

In this society of divorce and heartbreak, how do we ever really know for sure that we won't be left in that crowded place, heart pounding, trying to grasp for air when the one person you've loved your whole life doesn't want you anymore. My dream feels so real, so true and I wake up with a real and very unnatural heartache. And so I sit here in the middle of the night, heart pounding still and arms shaking as I write this. I have this dream often and I hate it, I hate this feeling, I hate waking up with no one here but me, no one to hold when I have these dreams. I hate knowing now I'll have to wait until morning to talk to him, knowing that my life here isn't really a life because he's not here with me. I hate the feeling of not being able to roll over into his arms and feel safe again.

I don't feel safe, I don't feel right here. I don't fit. It's getting harder and harder everyday. All my smiles are fake, all my laughs are for show and sometimes I don't know if I can keep up the charade.

So here I sit, in the middle of the night, with my heart pounding in my chest, wishing I was there, in my bed, able to roll right over and hold on to him to ride out the storm.

Edward and Bella

In our world we are surrounded by amazing love stories, in movies and on tv, in songs. We are told to go for it, to leap for love. We are told that it's ok to fall in love in a week, to get married in a month. And while I'm no one to judge, I personally don't believe in love at first sight, I believe in "falling in love at first sight" which I think is a totally different thing. Someone on facebook said is nicely the other day... "love is what is left over after falling in love goes away." So very true and so very necessary. Love is what you acquire over the course of time, it's the feeling after 4 years with that person, it's still missing them, still wanting them.

I don't believe that love is found in a few months, or discovered in a week. I don't believe that you can give forever to someone that quickly, it's not fair to either person. I don't believe that love can just happen, while that's part of it, it's not the entire thing. Love is something you work toward, that makes you want to work for it, that you have to mature, and grow in it. Love does not mean happiness all the time, it means being happy and being upset, it means hurting and being loved, it means fighting and smiling, crying and laughing. That's life.

So when I look to the greatest love stories of my time, I don't look at Khloe Kardashian married after a month, or Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey. I look to Edward and Bella, to Carrie and Mr. Big. I look to Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, I look to Charlotte and Harry, I look to Rufus and Lily and Marissa and Ryan. These are love stories that took time to develop, love stories to admire, love stories that took the time to fall in love and then afterwards... to just love.

And when I'm really feeling lonely and needing a reassuring love story, I take out Edward and Bella and read with them for a bit. A love story that transcends our culture today and in them... I find faith, and hope and love always.

for once

I don't know what I did this year or in my life for me to deserve all of this. I look around, and first of all, try to help those that I love and all I get back are emails that basically tell me I don't know what I'm talking about. Emails that keep me up at 5 in the morning because I can't think of anything else. It feels like so much I am being attacked from every angle latley, and at a time in my life where I need someone there for me the most, at one of the hardest and more depressing moments in my life, it seems that everyone else is just running around getting engaged, or more worried about football games than their own daughter. I'm so tired of everyone telling me to be patient and no one thinking that I'm worth any of that help. That someone else always goes first, someone else always gets their happy ending first.

Why is it that as I sit here in the bottom of this hole, everyone around me seems to be just flying by me, when they are the ones that should be looking closely at their own decisions. Yet everyone supports them, the bad decisions, the wrong choices, the too early engagements, but when it comes to me, when it comes to things that I want, I'm just told to wait. I'm told not yet, I'm told that "someday" it will happen, I'm told that this will pass. What did I ever do wrong to deserve these waves and waves crashing down on me. Emotionally I am a wreck, emotionally I have had it with friends and family and loved ones. I'm so sick of always coming last when I have been there and encouraged everyone else. I'm so sick of being told to wait.

I want to be worth the risk to leap... to do something to remember. I want someone to tell me that now is my time, that I can come first for once.

Not Another Word

Sometimes life throws us in a situations that challenge us, that make us go through things in order to get to others. Sometimes, we get to a point where all we want is something so badly and when we need it the most, everyone around us gets it first. It feels like my whole life, the things I've wanted have always happened for someone else first, and I'm always coming in last.

I guess that I have to learn to be patient, to let life happen as it's supposed to and when I least expect it, it will all come together. The challenging part is letting it happen, and letting myself just live. I sit here tonight on an island in the middle of the ocean, in my own world in the middle of nothing and everything and in between and I feel so ready for all my dreams to come true. I feel so ready to get to those moments that I've always wanted to experience and everything that I've always wondered if I want, I know so sure now that I do.

So sitting here tonight, I can look out over the millions of tiny lights, out over the black ocean, towards you, towards our future and I know that everything I dream about will happen someday, and that when it does, it will all have been worth it. So I will sit here, and not say another word. I will sit here and paint my nails and watch Sex and the City and just believe... that someday I'll get everything I want.

Next year

This morning, on my 23rd birthday, I sit here in a foreign hotel room, alone, wondering if this is the time of my life that everyone's telling me I should be living right now. All I want today is to find a way back home, to be back among those people that I love and that love me, to come home at night and feel like I'm truly "home." I miss that feeling, that feeling of comfort, of being able to know that I am in the right place.

And as I turn 23 today, I look back on my last few birthdays, all of which I have been surrounded by the most important people in my life, I have been happy, I have enjoyed the day, I have been blessed and here today, I know that I will look back at this birthday and it will be a moment in my life that I won't want to repeat again. So as I start the day, I guess I just have to remember that next year, I'll hopefully be back in that home I love, with the young man I miss every second of every day with those friends and family that make me happy. Next year will be a better birthday, one to remember.

Just You

I've come to find that sometimes even the people that love you most don't understand you and that sometimes even your parents won't totally know you and when you need them the most, they often disappoint the most. And sometimes there are things we face, things that break us, things that make us shed all those tears, and when those times come, we must be able to do what's right for us, what's best for us. I look outside at what many would call paradise, and I see nothing that inspires me, nothing that makes me want to get up and do this again. Whenever I used to be down, all I had to do was look outside, all I had to do was take a walk and just that city made me smile, inspired me and soothed me again. I never get that soothing here, I never can just come home and have a cup of tea and cuddle up next to the one person that makes me so happy. I have no inspiration any more, no way to find myself and I'm so worried that through that, I am falling deeper and deeper. Maybe this is the lowest point. Maybe if I could just crawl out, and make it out, I just wish so much that this wasn't my first experience with the world, that I could have been spared this.

Sometimes you come to find that the people that love you most don't understand you at all. Sometimes you just have to do what's best for you... no one else, just you.

Ever Again

As the tears roll down my cheeks again, I find myself in an all too familiar place. I sit here again, alone, wishing all was different, wishing that I was on that plane with him today, flying home, to the place we made a home together, to the place that houses all the things I need and want and love.

Every day I wonder how I will get back there, how I can be home again, back in his arms, back there, happy. I can't say goodbye anymore, I can't go through this every three weeks for however long we have left, and every single time, it kills me over and over again. It kills me letting him go, knowing that it's going to be another 4 weeks till I see him again, and then it will only be for 24 hours. It kills me that we're having to do this, that this is the way it has to be right now.

Every day I want to be there, not here. Every day I want to be with him and at this point, I'd give almost everything up for that to come true. But I guess for now, I just have to have faith, I have to believe that someday I will find a way, that something will work out and that something will make it all right again. But for now I must endure these goodbyes, I must find a way to get through them because I just have to know that someday I won't ever have to do this again.

Finding My Way

Sometimes I wonder if our mothers and their mothers before us got it all wrong. For generations we have built this society where a career should come before love, where a family and a big house in the suburbs should come before a long relationship with someone you really genuinely love and respect and just want to be with. Sometimes I wonder if all the feminine power that women have gained over the years was gained for the right reasons, and while I one of those girls that grew up thinking that I’d always choose a successful career over giving it all up for someone I love, I’ve realized in the past few months that I don’t know if I would anymore. And it’s in these past few months that have made me find out exactly what I want out of life and while I’m not extremely sure of the next year, what choices I will make and where I’ll be, I do know one thing and it’s something that took me a long time to realize… almost 23 year actually, and that is that when you find someone that you genuinely love, someone that makes you smile, that will sit at home with PF Changs take out and be happy just to be in sweats and watch a movie with you, you hold on to that, whatever that means you may give up. I’ve realized that when someone sees you 24 hours a day, at your best and at your worst, when they put up with your family and still want to go to family dinners with you even when you know there will be drama, that the things that seem like may be lost, only come back better as things you’ve found.
This year I have sat on countless plane rides, and for however many hours I’m flying, it seems like the trips bring something out inside of me I never felt before. Something that asks if this is all worth it, if the high I get from travel, if the dedication I exude in my work, in the independence I feel living on my own, if that’s all worth it, if it’s worth even a small fraction of what I pretend it is worth. And I think all the time about giving it all away to be with him, sometimes because I’m just lonely, I’ll admit, but most of the time it’s because I am finally at a point in my life where I have realized how very much love means, what home means. It means knowing that after the worst day you could have, he will be there when I come home at night, it means driving across the bridge and smiling down at our city together, the city where we met, where we both learned to how to love, and the city that made us grow up, while we got to do it together. It means maybe going out to eat every night of the week and getting sick of the same restaurants together, it means going to Target on the weekends and the grocery store.
And the more I think about it, the more I wonder how I got to this point. I’ve been with Nick for 4 years today, and it took me 4 years to really understand how I feel. It took me 4 years to realize that I never want anyone else, 4 years to realize that I would give up everything I’ve worked my whole life for in order to fly home and be with you. And in the words of the famous Mr. Big, “it took me a really long time to get here, but I’m here.”
I guess there are moments when suddenly you realize that everything you believed in never really existed, moments when you can’t wait for the next step, when you know that it is supremely right to be with someone and you genuinely and sincerely just want to be with them, for the rest of your lives.

Chance

These past four months have been the most emotionally draining of my life, and never have I been so conflicted in my life. I thought this was the easy part, first job, new city. But everyday feels like it last for years and I never have a day that I feel whole anymore, never a day that goes by that I don't wish I was somewhere else. There is so much people don't know about what's happened here, so much that I don't feel like I at liberty to share, so much that I don't agree with, so much that would only make them all worry about me.

I just want so badly to jump on a plane and forget it all, hide out in Portland from it all. From the moment I heard about this job, it scared me to take it. It scared me to be here, in this place I don't like; it scared me to take a job at a firm my dad works closely with; it scared me to go into this unsure. But I did because it was really my only option, I did it to please my parents and to have a salary. I did it to move forward and to find answers that I thought I needed. I did it for them, not for me. This wasn't my first choice, my second or even my third, it was my only choice.

I pray every day, that in a few months I'll be able to find something else. That I'll have the strength to pull myself away from here, that I'll have the opportunities to chase, that I'll be able to leave and find something else back home.

I have to pull myself out of this depression and this hole I'm in here, out of this life that I dislike so much. I just hope and pray that a chance comes around.

At the End of the Day

Tonight, I sit here in my apartment looking out of the thousands of tiny lights of Honolulu, over the dark ocean, over hundreds of people living their lives, in thousands of different ways. I sit here overlooking those that are religious, those that haven't ever set foot in a church in their lives; women and men, children and adults; those that are gay and those that are straight; those that are white, black, Hawaiian, Asian. And as I sit here, in my mind are the millions of comments made by people over the years, some more recently than others, that come up with ways to hold some back and put others ahead. For the first time today though, I heard something truly profound, something that truly made me sit here and write this tonight, something that coming from a mother, from a wife, from a woman that made me sit back and truly appreciate my beliefs even more.

I sit here as a young woman, a woman that believes full heartedly in the rights of gay marriage, in women's rights and equal opportunities. I sit here having friends of all races, of a young woman in the working community that deals with derogatory comments made toward groups of people every day. And in a world in such a mess, sometimes I can't help but just sit back and wonder where we went wrong. When we have a woman that would tell you that she's a Christian, that attends church regularly, the mother of a son who has come out as being gay, that she could sit there and look me in the face and tell me that gay marriage shouldn't be allowed because the only reason for marriage is to have children. It made me sick that such a theory even exists in our world today, that someone could even come up with that reason, as an excuse, as a way to say that that's the reason that two people that love each other, regardless of race or gender or ethnicity, should be stopped from having the civil liberties that the straight community has. I ask you tonight, if the tables were flipped, if you were in that position, leaving gender and race aside, letting emotions take the lead, letting your heart feel, and if you loved someone, why should you have to give up that union?

I could also raise the point of myself... am I subject to that rule as well then? As a young woman that doesn't want to have children of my own, knowing at an early age that that life isn't meant for me, should I not be allowed to be married either? Should I have my liberties taken away because of who I am? I think we get so off track in our society, we forget to give each other the benefit of being different, of wanting different things in life. Not all girls grow up wanting the fairy tale wedding and the perfect two little kids running around the big house in the suburbs. I've never wanted that, that was the never the life for me.

We are not all the same, nor should we be. Yet we should have respect for each other at least, respect enough to believe that God loves us all equally, that he doesn't pick and choose who can love and who can't, that he doesn't look down and say because you fell in love with someone, that that makes you anything less than anyone else. He doesn't discriminate - we do.

I think that there are moments in life when you really realize who a person is. It may be after just meeting them, or it might be years and years down the road. But in that moment you see the real person they are, and so often the people I see are a disgrace to this world we live in, and it's people like that, comments like that, that are the worse sins of all. I may not be the perfect person, and I have made my own share of many mistakes, but I believe we all deserve the right to be happy, no matter gay or straight, man or woman, houses in the suburbs or apartments in the city, whatever we are, whoever we become, if our lives don't hurt other people, if we live as good people and help this world to be a better place than what harm does a union between two people that love each other cause?

And at the end of the day, I have to wonder, in this world that seems to take 1 step forward and 10 steps back, how is it that we got to the point where loving someone isn't allowed? I'm not asking us to move mountains, or to change your beliefs, or to give up your own rights at all - I'm asking you to think about if it was you, or your son or daughter, or your brother or your friend. Shouldn't we all be allowed to be happy, to marry the people we love, to become the people we are, gay or straight, women that want children of their own and women that don't? When did wanting to spend your life with someone become wrong?

Disappoint

Why is it that all at once, we feel lost, like there is no one to fall back on, no one to catch us when we need it the most? Why is it when dissapointment is all around us, when it seems our whole lives are filled with people that disappoint us, in sitatuations that make us lose faith is everyone and everything in our lives, that it all hits at once? And when we need those people the most, more disappointment follows.

Some things never change I guess.. all I can hope for is to someday find someone, somewhere that isn't always a disappointment.

Thousands of Tiny Lights

Sometimes our lives present themselves to us in meandering paths, in journeys that we must take in order to really realize what we're meant to be. I've always been the girl that didn't necessarily believe in getting married, that didn't ever want to really settle down, that thought I could handle the world on my own. And then a moment came, a moment as I sat alone in a hotel room in Seoul, a moment that finally everything clicked in to place in my mind, a moment when I knew that all that really mattered was to be with him, a moment when I finally realized that I want to someday walk down that aisle and see him at the other end. And in that moment, it was all so clear, so right, when so much else in my life was going wrong. And in those few thoughts, in at moment of clarity, suddenly I had this hope to hold on to and every doubt I've ever had was lifted, and I knew at once that he is the only one that I want to be with, that he is the only one that understands me totally, the one that I want all my dreams to come true with. He is the one that makes me smile and the voice that lifts my mood. He is the one that I could lay next to forever, and the one that I would be willing to give it all up for.

And sometimes when moments like that approach us, they approach us at times in our lives when we need it the most. And so as this year drags on and I am encountering some very difficult days, I have that piece of hope in my mind, that piece of hope that I know will come. And while it may not happen right away, I know that it will. I know that it will happen, that I will walk down the aisle at sunset, with thousands of tiny lights over head, with that perfect song playing, with everyone I love there to support me, and I will look into his eyes and say those two little words that mean forever. And I know that when that day comes we will look back on everything we've been through and know that the decision is true, that's it's pure and that everything we went through was for a reason.

So as I look ahead, even through this is going to be a very long trek to get back home to him, I know that it will all work out somehow and that whatever is meant to be will be.

The Deepest

Whatever happened to the days when we could lay in bed and get so wrapped up in a book that we never got up? Or the days when love conquered all, when we could rush to each other's side at any sign of fire? Lately, I'm finding every reason to cry, every reason to hate, every reason to be unhappy and it's all so easy to find those emotions in my life right now. I'm spending so much energy putting on a front to every one in my life, a front that I'm happy, well at least content, that I love my job, that I'm doing alright on my own. And inside, with everything I've gone through here, everything I've put up with in my job, everything that I've dealt with with my family and the emotional roller coaster I feel like I'm constantly living in my long distance relationship, I don't have any energy left at the end of the day, and then people wonder why I'm so exhausted at 8 o'clock.

Growing up, no one ever explains to you how to make the tough decisions, or that boys will break your heart over and over or that family will let you down. It's all the stories about how the men in your life are supposed to race through the airport after you, how living your own life will make you independent, how careers will form right before your eyes and you'll truly make a difference. And then you get here... to this point in your life, in a job in which the company has disappointed you beyond belief, in a relationship across an ocean that made you come here in the first place, and in the middle of family issues that have you scarred forever. And then you wonder, is this really what's it all supposed to be? Is this what I've been dreaming of my whole life? And maybe it's because my dreams were above what normal expectations should be, maybe it's because in the end, everybody just ends up disappointing me, maybe it's because I expect too much from everyone, even myself. Maybe it's because the support I need, the support I used to have is gone, maybe it's because every day I wake up and wish I wasn't here.

And after all of it, after thinking I could master the world, go after my dreams, maybe I can't. Maybe I don't have it in me, maybe everything and everyone that I thought would be there for me, won't ever step up to be there. What happened to the romance? The idealistic dreams? What happened to surprises and moments when I thought the world would stop turning? I don't know what happened to them but they aren't here, they aren't in me anymore. This past four months has changed me inside, and sometimes beyond recognition of myself. Sometimes I look in the mirror and wonder who this girl is, there's nothing here to hold on to anymore.

I feel like there really isn't anything to hold on to anymore, and every time I feel like I finally get a firm grip on something, on him, on home, on family, my grip fails and I'm falling once again. Sometimes there is nothing in my life to hold on to, sometimes the only emotions I feel in this world make me the loneliest I've ever been. All I want is to be home, wrapped up in a blanket watching the rain pour down outside... but that won't happen... and who knows how long it will be till it does.

City of Peace

It's things about home that can't help but make you smile and feel whole again. It's the construction finished on a building that you've watched from the beginning, it's being in your lovers arms again in a home that you made together. It's seeing those faces around town that you haven't seen for months, it's walking in your city and smiling at the quirks that you've missed so much. It's the trees, more lush than ever, it's the air, it's the feeling inside your heart that feels like peace, that feels like everything that was missing is put back together again. It's the feeling of knowing that when you wake up you'll be waking up here in his arms, knowing that tomorrow will be as beautiful as today.

It's the smallest things that make such a difference, like the way the city streets feel under your feet, the way the max sounds when it's making the corner against the rails in Goose Hollow and the Pearl district at night. It's the places that so many memories were made and it's seeing the smile on your own face. It's the light breeze, just enough for a jacket and the beginnings of fall. It's a few days that you can escape where you are and admire this city for all it is, admire it for how beautiful it truly is, regardless of everything else.

It's days like this that truly keep me alive, that make my eyes blue, that make my smile exist. It's moments like this in my city that I can smile and know that here I fit, here I am loved, here I exist, and perhaps will always. And while I know that tomorrow brings another plane trip (becoming a constant in my life) back to another home, I will always have this city in my heart and I will always have this city in my soul. And no matter how long I am away, or how long my life pulls in other directions, this is where I will always be home, this is where I will always find peace, in his arms, in this city of peace.

Back in our City

I think that sometimes we must say goodbye in order to love again, in order to feel again. Sometimes we must spread our own wings instead of living under someone else's. Sometimes the truest love we'll ever know is the one that just makes us better people, someone you just love to be with, someone that just makes you smile. It's sad to see so many people in this world so bitter about love lost or what has happened to them. It's sad to see them have lost all their faith in love, in what at one point made them so happy.

It took me a while to get to this point, it took four years to realize my mistakes, to realize what's ahead. And while I always thought I might end up here, I can fully say now that I am here, so sure of where I am headed, so sure of what is truly important in my life. And when I go to sleep every night and wake up every morning, he is the first thing I think about. As I go through my days, he is all that's on my mind. And when I think about my future, he is the only constant I see.

For a while I was worried that all my dreams would have to be put aside in order to be that girl, that girl so in love with the boy she's known for so long, but I've realized now that it doesn't have to be like that. I've realized now that I can have him and my dreams and that our love, our commitment, our strength will carry us through.

So my love, hold on just a little longer and before you know it I'll be back in your arms, back in our city, back together, forever and for always.

Every Second

There were moments the last few days when I felt truly whole again, moments when I felt like nothing could ruin anything, like for the first time in my life, I truly knew where I am meant to be, who I am meant to be, where my true home is. My whole life I've been searching for that something that would complete me. That feeling most people have when they go home to family, that feeling of knowing that there is one place in this world that will always be there for you to return to, that place that soothes your soul and makes all your problems fade away. For me, I've always struggled with finding that until two days ago.

This move has been one of the hardest and most bitter sweet things in my life. While it has opened so many doors, it has also made me much farther away from others. And while I can't wait to be back there living my life again, I also know that I must make the most of it while I am here. I also know that I must find a way to keep going even though my heart is aching ever more every day. I know that this happened for a reason and that it will all work out for me as time goes on.

So tonight as the evening fades, I am going to pretend that the leaves are changing and that you are here by my side, holding me close, your fingers filling the spaces between mine. The night turns light blue outside and after only leaving just hours ago, I can't help but feel lost again, and broken down. I felt so whole for two days, the first time in my life I've felt so complete, so truly meant to be somewhere and it's gone, not forever, but gone for tonight, for now. There is so much I miss, so much I want to have tonight but can't. There are no leaves changing colors, no fall breeze, no Portland. And as much as I try to pretend that it's here, as much I try to accept a different kind of scene, I still can't help but feel a bit broken up again. Every day this gets harder, every hour, every second, all I want is to be back home.

The Most Beautiful Place

My whole life I've made a decision and known what I wanted. I have always been steadfast to what is important to me and so why would that be different when I fell in love. And after 4 years with the boy I fell in love with the first time I met him, I still to this day know that he is what I am destined to be. We'll always be "Casey and Nick" and in that, if you know us, means a lot. I've watched my friends go through lovers, found and then lost. I've watched my family split apart. I've seen life in the eyes of so many different people and places and through it all, I am here, still steadfast in the decision my heart made for me so long ago.

4 years ago I was just a young, naive, innocent girl, 18, on my own for the first time, dealing with demons and insecurities. And it was at that time in my life that I met Nick. That all the pieces fell into place, that I knew in an instant that he was my the perfect match for me. It was in that instant that I first saw him in the dorms watching football on TV, with his tanned skin, his dark hair and his hat tilted just a little to the side that my life changed. It was that first night he slept over at my apartment, that first morning waking up next to him, that showed me what love really is. It's the memories we've made and the things we know about each other than no one else in the world knows. It's the trust we have in each other and the loyalty we feel. It's the smallest moments like holding his hand or a kiss on the cheek that truly explains our love. It's never been about being all over each other for us, for us, it goes much deeper than that. For us, it's always been natural, never with a need to "show it off." For us, our love has always been about moments that we cherish, feelings so deep that we can understand them on the same level together. For us, it's always been about overcoming the challenges, to take what we've been given and do what we feel.

It hasn't been easy or perfect by any means but it has been rewarding and a kind of relationship that sustains itself without any outside influence. And even now, miles apart, it's as if these 4 years have flown by. It's as if suddenly my life has come to a point where suddenly it all makes sense and I can see the road ahead, while narrow at some parts, expanding into the open sunrise, winding its way to the most beautiful place.

In the Rain

I'm here in your heart,
always have been, always will be.
I'm the girl that flew away,
the girl that needed her space,
the girl that needed to find her own life,
the girl that flew away,
to find what I thought was right.

I'm here in the sunshine,
while you're there in the rain,
and I never thought I'd miss the rain so very much,
I never thought I'd be so lost on my own,
that you were everything that was right.

I'm here on my own tonight,
waiting in the dark for my life to go back
to how it used to be.
I'm here on my own tonight,
wondering why I had to fly away,
wondering why I ever thought distance was best.

I am here in your heart tonight,
so many miles away, but so close in love,
so close in thought, so close in spirit.
I'm here in the sunshine, while you're in the rain,
in our rain, in the life I left behind.

Soon

Why is it that when we get all that we want, there is always something more that we wish for? Why is it when we have so much right, that still it feels somewhat wrong? Why is it that sometimes we could dream forever about all the things we want but when we get them, or a version of them anyways, that suddenly they aren't enough? For me, my dreams were everything, and to an extent they still are, but it seems that everyday, my heart is changing and I am finding more and more that there are other things that my heart is craving too.

Love. Family. Home. Familiarity. Comfort. Peace. These are just a few things I am craving at the moment... a few things that I miss dearly and that I hope to have again someday soon.

The Chase

Sometimes in life we hope for the best and never quite get it. Sometimes we dream for that perfect guy to come chasing after us, for the people that would give anything to be with us, sometimes that's just all a fairy tale. Sometimes the things we think we want are the things that we'll never get and when the time comes to choose between the things we dream of and the things that make us happy... will our choice turn out to disappoint us? If we give up something we've always wanted for someone that we hope will be willing to do the same, will they do it for us or will all be in vain?

There are moments when all I want, when my world would be put back together if I could just get an answer. If I could get something to tell me that what I'm doing, what I plan to do will be worth it. Some act, some moment when once again my faith will be restored. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one in the world trying, that everybody else slides by and then there's me, always worrying, always holding the world on my shoulders, or so it seems. Sometimes I wonder why I do it, why I put my heart out there, and why time and time again I'm hurt.

It seems that after finally realizing what's important to me, after finally realizing that love is so much more important than some of my dreams, once again, I feel lost. Once again, my heart is hurting because at a time when so much is happening, all I want is someone to tell me that it'll be okay and that I'm worth chasing.

My City

As time gets closer and closer to being in Oregon again, I find myself counting down the days. Never have I missed something so much, and I've come to find that I'll always consider it home, even though I never grew up there, even though I've been all over the world, I will always find the peace and comfort of "home" in the best kept secret place in the world, in Oregon.

Sometimes I look out my window and pretend that it's the streets of the Pearl, or the river at sunset, or Pioneer Square, or NW 23rd. Sometimes I can see in my head so clearly the drive up burnside, the morning walks to school, the 405 bridge when the sun is setting over the mountains. I miss the way it rains in Oregon, the way it gets so grey, but the most beautiful shade of grey. I miss the restaurant tables spilling out in to the sidewalk in the summer time and the random people you see all over town. I miss being able to walk everywhere and be there in 20 minutes. I miss wearing jackets and feeling like I belong. I miss the beautiful buildings, the tree covered streets of Goose Hollow. I miss the first few weeks of fall, when you can feel a fresh change coming. I miss knowing I am only an hour away from my grandparents and my brother. I miss Red Robin and Mazatlan and Macaroni Grill. I miss coffee on my way to school and riding the MAX. I miss always having my umbrella with me in the winter and the scarves and the gloves. I miss the waiters knowing me at PF Changs and ice cream runs to Cold Stone or Gelato in the pearl. I miss the easiness, the familiarity, I miss feeling like I'm home at the end of the day. I miss the airport in Portland and the drives down to Medford. I miss the trees, and the air, and the field and field driving south on I5.

I know why I left and I know that when it came down to it, I didn't really have a choice. I knew I needed to change in order to really appreciate what I had, that I'd never love Portland as much as I love it now that I've left. I knew somehow that I had to move away to experience other things in order to know that I had to come back someday, to love it even more, to know that it's where I'm meant to be. I knew that I had some difficult decisions to make, that I had to chase some dreams before I could keep on going how I was. And now I know that Portland, that Oregon is in my heart, in my soul and in my mind, forever, it's a place that forever I will call home, that forever I will be apart of, whether I am there or not.

And everyday when I get to work and turn on my computer, there it is, right there on my screen everyday, that city that made me who I am, that city that I will return to someday, that city that is in my dreams and my thoughts all the time.

25

I was re-reading some old emails from loved ones tonight and suddenly I felt a bit inspired to something on my blog a bit different from what I usually do. I got to thinking about all the amazing memories I've had and all the incredible things I've experienced in my young life. Below is a list of my top 25 memories (though there are so many more, these are the ones that I feel have shaped me the most)... of moments that have changed me, that have made me who I am, moments that have been the hardest or the best moments of my life and through all of them... I have grown, I have loved and I have lived.

25. Presenting my college Thesis to an audience and having it so warmly accepted and acknowledged.
24. Renting an apartment totally on my own for the first time... and spending all my own money to get it together and set up.
23. Meeting my childhood friends 12 years after I left Saudi and feeling totally comfortable with them even after than long span of time apart.
22. Having my childhood pets die... within months of each other.
21. Making the decision to change colleges and never regretting it.
20. Losing my aunt to family fights and misunderstandings, an aunt that was one of my best friends and confidantes and who is no longer in my life.
19. Saying goodbye to Nick when I left Seattle, moving to Hawaii.
18. Watching my little brother graduate from high school and being so proud of him.
17. Leaving Saudi, leaving my childhood behind and losing everything I knew and the year that followed - one of the hardest years of my life.
16. Finally figuring out for sure what I wanted to do with my life... knowing that my passion truly lay in the design field and going after that dream.
15. Moving in With Nick - through all the ups and downs of that experience
14. Afternoon teas and lunches with my grandma... a woman that I would not be myself without
13. My senior year with my mom when my dad was gone - a year that changed my life and that made my mom and I closer than we ever would have been otherwise
12. My first night in my apartment in Portland, I'll never forget that feeling... so alive, lonely and anxious all at the same time
11. My first "date" with Nick - I knew I wanted to be with him and I knew that it was meant to be
10. The first time that I could support myself financially all on my own
9. The death of my great uncle - seeing and experiencing that made me truly understand death and made me wonder how I'd ever survive the death of someone close to me
8. Meeting Nick's family for the first time.
7. Mending the relationship with my dad - after my senior year of high school I was barely speaking to him and through the years... we've become the closest we've ever been
6. My first car - which I still have that I am so attached to
5. Turning 20 - for the first time I really felt like an adult, and I knew my path and was taking the steps to complete it
4. Nick and I's first kiss
3. Graduating college with honors and having my entire family there to support me
2. The first morning that Nick spent the night at my apartment and waking up next to him in his arms
1. The moment when I realized that no matter how many ups and downs we face, Nick is the one and only person in this world that I can tell anything to, the one person that I want to be with over anyone else and the one person that will always understand me more than anyone else ever could.