Between Clever Lines

Here's the conclusion I've come to. Living your life afraid to get hurt? Isn't worth it. You miss out on all of the good things doing that.  What you have to do is take the times he called you beautiful, that time she put her arms around you and danced to your favourite song, the roses he bought you for your birthday, and you need to put those memories somewhere no one can touch them, not even the people who created them. And you need to remember that once, you were loved. You were loved so much that one person couldn't handle all of the love and it had to be shared between two people. And you deserved that love.  And when she leaves or he says he regrets it, you protect the good memories and lose the rest. You deserve the beautiful memories, but you never deserve the slamming door or the click at the other end of the phone line. So you make as many good memories as you can, and then you save them. And that's all you can do. 

             Once, when I was in fourth or fifth grade, for the last week in November and the beginning of December, my parents wouldn’t let me go into the guest bedroom.   I figured that was just where they were keeping the Hannukah presents, and I don’t like ruining surprises, so I kept out.             At 4:30 one morning in early December, my lights flicked on.   My father was holding a camera and wearing a sombrero.   My mother had just put some mariachi music into the stereo by my bed.   Get up and pack whatever you want to read on the plane ride , they said.   We’re leaving for Mexico in twenty minutes .             I hadn’t been allowed in the guest bedroom because that was where the suitcases were.   My parents had been planning this for months and just decided to keep it a secret.   I do...

            Sometimes, I get so involved in the lives of others that I forget how to live on my own.  I share my hurts with my friends, but I forget to let myself actually feel them, to just sit still and breathe and acknowledge that yes, this hurts.  Very much, in fact.  But that’s okay.  That hurt means I’m alive and it means that I had something that I cared about enough to miss.  And I’m lucky because not everyone ever has something that important to lose.             I need to learn to be my own person, even when I’d rather be have someone else around.  I need to realize that it’s okay to be in my own headspace sometimes.  I don’t need another voice around at all times to tell me I’m okay.  I’m making that time for me to be alone.  Well, alone with Taylor Swift and Ben and Jerry.  Hey, a girl has to have her ways of coping, right?  ...

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the power of a name.  I spend so much time talking to my friends on skype.  We’re almost constantly connected.  From the time I turn on my computer to the time I turn it off at night, I am talking to someone.  It struck me the other day that I hardly ever hear (or rather read) my name. We are conditioned to love hearing our name.  So much so, in fact, that our brain rewards us for just hearing the syllables that we use to identify ourselves.  And yet I’m surprised and happy every time I read the six letters of my name typed by someone else. Why don’t we use our names more often?  Maybe we feel like it’s weird to continue to say the names of people we’ve known for months or years.  Maybe we feel like they should know that we know who they are by now.  But it doesn’t hurt to remind them occasionally. I guess what I’m really saying is say my name, say my name .

And maybe if you had someone to come home to, You'd fight harder to come home alive, She says, Then looks at me.  Like I'm worth coming back for.  Like I'm worth living for.  And I'm afraid in equal measure That I'd be that person,  And that I wouldn't be enough. 

I’ve been absent from the internet deliberately today.  I checked twitter once or twice.  I talked to a few friends on Skype.  I sent messages to friends on facebook because, as much as today is an anniversary of a horrific event, there were people born today, too. I don’t have a TV here, so I didn’t watch programs with pretentious people pretending to understand what it’s like to have someone you care about die saving innocent lives.  I didn’t read interview after interview.  I didn’t RT any articles on twitter or photos on tumblr.  I didn’t watch any videos on YouTube or tell people over and over how proud I am to be an American. I am, though. What I’m most proud of is that there are people in America who sacrificed their lives doing what they believed was right.  People who continue to defend our country not from an entire race or religion, but from the individual people who mean us harm.  And I’m proud that I live in a country where ...

The sign that says "Attractions" at the exit for my grandparents' house is blank, as if the state of NY can't imagine for the life of them what would attract anyone to the tiny town of Eastport, Long Island. There are no malls, no waterparks. I'm not sure I want anyone to know what should attract them here, honestly. If everyone knew about this place, a thousand tourists would trample the flower beds that my grandmother used to cultivate so she could sell bouquets out of her farm stand. They'd eat up all of the "Play Doh" ice cream at the Hershey's stand that also sells international phone cards. They'd buy all of the silly bracelets on main street. They'd dig up all the sand, catch all of the waves. Is it selfish, to keep this a secret? The attractions for me here abound; a raspberry, sweet as a promise, erupting on my tongue, a whisper through the fence from the boy next door, a game of Pooh sticks with my mother over the bridge dow...