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.