Discover Parkland
For those of you who don’t know, I have the wonderful privilege of being a brand ambassador and on the photo team for Parkland. What I love most about the direction of their marketing is that they are about finding your own escape
Stems Instead of Roses.
I couldn’t really describe the feeling other than the fact that I felt empty and my insides were all numb that morning, drawing blank spaces as I sat cuddling the blankets on my bed whisking out deep sighs. There was no way of shaking off the hollowness—no amount of Netflix or dark chocolate, or desperate prayers, or stacking up my schedule so that I didn’t have to think about what was happening with my heart. Nothing could fix it. I was a walking corpse; living and breathing, but not actually living. I had given until I literally could not give anymore because there was nothing left in my system to give. It was like I was lying out in the desert, naked and bare, with no access to water for days. I was parched. Completely sucked dry. And very, very tired.
What’s Your Mantra.
Their mantra is that they are passionate about people and also happen to make damn good coffee too. That’s what I love most about this coffee shop tucked in the outskirts of Los Angeles County, sitting right below the San Gabriel Mountains.
2015: Repaired With Gold Seams.
It’s that time of the year where the catch up sesh game is real strong. You’re running around meeting up with people who are dropping a visit in town, and encountering faces you haven’t seen in awhile at gatherings, reunions, and the like. Not sure if it’s out of common courtesy, or they actually care to know how you’re doing and what you’ve been up to, but the begging questions are always the same: “Hey, how are you? What’s been going on?”
Well, since they asked…
2015 was everything I had hoped it would not be. Life happened, and life happened so hard.
To be honest, I have to reflect and dig with extreme effort in order to draft up a list of everything that went down between January and December. And even then, it’s not quite cohesive enough because most of the year was a strange emotional blur.
Home Is Being Known.
I went to call her on my cell phone.
There was no one else on the second floor of that miniature hipster coffee shop. Perfect. It would be converted into my office for the day. I ordered my usual latte, dispersed my belongings all around the ground and on top of the table, and propped myself on the couch with legs sprawled out horizontally. I was ready to tear through some of the things on my to-do list, many of those tucked under the “medical logistics” heading I had neglected for several weeks now. I despise dealing with those things with such a strong passion because there is nothing that drives me up the wall more than being placed on hold for hours, feeling like I have medical bills I can’t single-handedly afford, not getting the right information, or being given the round about of circular answers. Most of the time, anything medically related completely stomps on my shut down switch because it tires and overwhelms me. God must have decided to shower down a little extra grace that afternoon because by hour three, I was making some serious progress: new cardiologist found, accounts set up, appointments made for the next three months, insurance providers contacted, and medical records and history in hand with access at the click of a button. They were simply baby steps and small victories, but nonetheless, what I imagine winning the lotto scratcher might be like in the game of adulting.
Hello, How Are You.
Hello, can you hear me?
I get bad cases of friendship loyalty.
I had no idea how he could be so calm about it. We’re going to call him Charlie. Charlie was calm, and I was over here wanting to shout out a million curse words that looked a lot of %^#$@!%$!# while at the same time roundhouse kicking someone in places that would hurt like hell (and I’m not talking about butts). It’s not in my character to react to situations so strongly like this, but I was feeling all kinds of injustice; utterly hot and bothered and being a whole lot on edge like I was set out to slaughter and destroy.
A few hours prior, I had been standing next to a guy I had never met. Five minutes into making eye contact and him un-tactfully running his mouth, I had made my guesses. Maybe it was gut or women’s intuition, but arrows flashed so loudly pointing to him as the culprit. You see, Charlie had texted me in the afternoon the day before informing me about how I wouldn’t be seeing him the following day because decisions had to be made. He had resigned from his position, and he was no longer going to fulfill the role that he had been so wonderful at accomplishing for years because of someone and something outside of his control. He fought for months but life finally decided to dump out a big bowl of politics, so the right response was to gracefully retreat and surrender. I respect that, but I still had to put the two and two together and find the root cause. Charlie would later confirm my presumptions.
Love Looks Like…
I used to make decisions based on signs; I swore by them.
Signs I somehow justified to be from God.
Like, when I decided to attend college as a pre-med, refusing to declare any major other than something medically related. I had gone through a fair share of injuries as a competitive athlete, and that was a sign destining me to fulfill my calling as an orthopedic surgeon. And then there were those times I would drive on the freeway and see cars passing by—same model and make as the boy I was hardcore liking. It was an obvious sign not to give up on the relationship even though he claimed he never liked me back. And then there were those conditions where I would decide that him and I needed space, so I would intentionally stop sending him text messages and refuse to be the one to initiate conversation. But if he eventually did text or call me about something and wanted to hang out, then it was a clear sign that we were still supposed to talk.
I think about those situations now, and all I can think about how silly I was being. My naivety game was real strong. And so along the way, I’ve learned that you can’t always base life off of signs, and you sure as hell can’t navigate relationships because of some made up voices inside your head convincing you that maybe, just maybe he loved you and was just too afraid to fess up to it. Because let’s be real: He probably didn’t love you that much, if even at all.
Invisible Illness Is A Real Thing.
The text message always begins something like this:
“Hey. I woke up this morning feeling super sick so we can’t hang out today. Can we please rain check? I’m so sorry.”
“Of course, hope you get over your sickies soon.”
And in my head, I’m thinking… NOPE. Not going to happen.
…
Read the book, not the cover. You’ll find out a lot more if you do.
Everyone’s all like, “wake me up when September ends.” And I’m over here like: Well, September has ended and all I really want to do is go back to bed because I haven’t had a decent night of sleep in days no matter how early I try to tuck myself in, while playing lullabies hoping the mellow hums might serenade me to some z’s. I promise it’s not the cold brew or the fact that National Coffee Day made me want to swallow more caffeine than normal just because it was National Coffee Day. Nope. The only reason I’m up at 2am is because my hands have lost a little bit of strength and I can’t seem to hold them in a tight fist. And my body hurts like someone suddenly decided to stab me in the stomach with a knife and twist it around several times, then proceed to hammer a few nails into my heart and leave them there to chill but it’s still beating a million miles a minute. I’m not trying to be metaphorical or profound or whatever. That’s literally how I physically feel at the moment. Everything hurts. But at the same time, I’m not going to make a big deal out of it because it’s kind of a normal thing. No rivers are flowing on the outside right now because my tear ducts are experiencing a slight drought after this whole week and a little piece of last. But I’m sure I probably have some ponds accumulating somewhere internally.
Life Is Not A Puzzle.
Jigsaw puzzles fascinate me.
In elementary school and junior high, my classmates very much enjoyed staying on trend playing the latest and greatest video and computers games. I, on the other hand, had other interests in mind. Nope, not the world of Pokemon cards (although I’ll admit, that was a thing at one point), but I would ask my parents to buy me puzzles. I didn’t want just any ordinary puzzle though. I specifically only wanted 1000-piece Thomas Kinkade puzzles. Nerdy as it sounds and if I’m being totally honest, it really became a little bit of an addiction, especially in my seventh grade year when I became severely ill and had to be homeschooled for most of it. For years, I had tried to analyze and hash out what drew me in, why I only wanted to build those exclusive puzzles and would refuse to succumb to anything else. Maybe it was because of all the colors—the glowing highlights and saturated pastels intricately plaited onto the canvases. Maybe it was Kinkade’s placement of idyllic settings in his works—lighthouses, stone cottages, rivers, streams, woods, and floral gardens. Maybe it was the crazed chaos happening in my life and immersing myself within this meticulous activity ushered in a glimpse of peace. Perhaps, it was the combination of all those things, which resulted in the formation of something so beautifully striking. Regardless of the motivation, there was something about those painted puzzle prints that captivated me time and time again. But as I became more charmed, I learned that Kinkade’s artwork actually also fell under the bucolic category, meaning that an artist employs assorted methods, taking something that is pretty multifaceted and embeds it into a simpler context.
No Screens Attached.
I was woken up by a natural 6am call of blazing cold air whistling through the window and the blinds I was sleeping parallel to, in a bed that was not my own, with the biggest desire of needing to go potty but my body was not ready to race to the bathroom because it was freezing. So I lay there for several minutes staring up at the white ceilings trying to regain consciousness before sleepily turning over to grab my mobile device, and finally powering it on to find a batch of new message notifications come tumbling in. A couple from Connecticut, one from Europe, one from Texas, one from Hawaii, and a few from back home—all from friends that were old and new; numbers I had just saved into my contacts this past week and ones I have had for over a decade.
Mornings like these fill my heart with so much warmth and gratitude, where I am able to erase and call out all the little white lies about feeling like friends are non-existent because you’re out on the road and all the other humans in your life are off gallivanting around the universe doing their own things as well. I really do appreciate the little texts—the ones that come all inclusive with laughter, dumb comments, and petite bits of wit and sarcasm intentionally reaching out and saying, “Hey, I want to see you. I do see you. I am wanting to chat with you because I appreciate your friendship and care about your well being.” And then proceed to laugh together at our crazy selves and life, because sometimes it’s exhausting to take our days so seriously.
