Oh Mom

You're the bomb.
No really,
I can hear you ticking, ticking on.
Your life is full of sacrifice,
your odd definition of love.
You ever wonder why you feel guilty?
You're not good enough for yourself.
Properly raising three kids in their twenties
Why did you think it was possible?
I still admire your efforts.
Your love runs deep
When we're playing on the streets
Going places we shouldn't be,
Hanging out till 5am.
Anger, worry, frustration
Pacing, phoning, and typing.
You can't yell at me anymore
I'm almost twenty-four
"So you're finally home?"
"Why yes, now leave me alone."
And that ticking skips and explodes.

Trapped

I find that when you keep me cooped up, I'm not happy. I need to explore what this world has to offer me and honestly how can anyone be happy staying in one place? It's ridiculous. I'm not about this life anymore. My wanderlust needs to be satiated before I can continue a "normal" life. I need to be doing something constantly.  There's no reason to stay home all the time.

I'm my own best friend...

This may sound like I don't appreciate what I have, but I feel empty and a little aggravated. 

I feel like everyone I associate myself with doesn't completely understand me and I honestly feel like no one's really tried that hard. It kinda makes sense since I tend to be more introverted, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy being social or opening up. I'm the type of person who won't tell you anything unless I'm asked. I have to be sure there's a genuine interest because I absolutely hate forced conversation and fake friendliness.

That's besides the point though. My issue is that whenever I talk to someone about my internal struggles and general issues, it feels like they don't really care. I could be wrong, maybe that person just doesn't know what to say, but goddamn... I'd rather hear a joke about my struggles than to feel like I've just wasted my time speaking to someone. This happens with a lot of my friends and it makes me feel so alone. I feel like I'm always the one giving advice and giving my friends the push and confidence to move forward in their lives. I don't get that shit in return. I never really felt good after talking to a friend. A lot of the time, I feel more unsure about myself and I second guess myself to no end. 

I don't want to feel like I'm alone anymore. I want someone to actually listen and comprehend what I'm telling them when I say I'm not feeling like myself. When I tell them my heart is aching because I feel like I'm working towards nothing at all and I'm just not satisfied with where I am in life. I don't need you to offer me a job or to help me look for one at that. I just need some reassurance that everything is going to be ok. I don't need you to tell me what I did wrong to end up in this position. JUST FUCKING TELL ME EVERYTHING WILL BE OK. 

Outfit of the Day

Canon ball into the water

When I was younger,  I took the whole "be nice to people" too seriously. It's taken me almost twenty years to realize I don't have to please anyone but myself.

However,  putting this new mindset into practice isn't exactly easy. I've made a lot of progress so far,  but I still have a lot to learn and to overcome.

I'm still very dependent on people's approval and it holds me back. I also worry too much about what i say and how i say it. E0

I'm confident, but only on certain things and even then it can come crashing down in one fumbled sentence.

Twice in the same week.

Saturday July 12, 2014 

I don't think I'm ever going to forget this day. My friends and I all went to see Brand New in Philly. It was a 2 hour drive and I thankfully didn't have to drive at all this time around.

First, I had to call out from work because there was no way that I was going to pass up seeing Brand New again, plus I had more friends to enjoy it with.

Including myself, there were five of us waiting for Brand New. We got pretty close to the stage and there were people coming in from the right side of the stage and that to me looked like good news because that meant that a mosh pit was definitely going to happen. The lights went down and everyone began cheering for Brand New, but they've yet to appear on stage and this crazy ass song comes on with the lyrics "please don't keep me waiting." It was the longest fucking song I've ever heard. EVER. I was dying.

Near the end of that song, my friend Sam starts to feel like she's about to pass out, so she leaves for water and shortly after she's gone, Brand New starts playing and I'm stuck in a crazy mosh/push pit with Adam where we're separated from Billy and Jakub immediately. It was fun, scary, and annoying all at the same time. I loved it. It's exactly what I expected and wanted. However, I felt like shit for not going with Sam, but the crowd was pretty rough at this point, so I had as much fun as could before it calmed down and left Adam to retrieve Sam. After a phone call of not understanding half of the things she said, we decided to meet at a concession stand and head back to the crowd together.

Our goal was to meet up with Adam, but it proved to be difficult with people getting mad at us and the crowd being pretty damn tight. We were also on the left side of the stage, which meant we also had to start walking towards the right side, which we were decently far from. We would stop along the way to enjoy the concert, but both of us craved that high energy crowd and finally made more moves toward the actual crowd. Sam and I both thought we saw Jakub and after staring at this stranger for a few seconds, I turn to her and say, "He kinda looks like Jakub" and he looks at us and just says "sorry" with a chuckle. It was kinda funny and awkward.

During what seemed like the encore we were in a mosh pit and extremely close to the stage. My shortness didn't even factor into me not seeing them. We got pushed into a bunch of other people and once the pit calmed down, I basically had to grab Sam towards the right and on the other side of the mosh pit we found Adam. It was a fun reuniting moment, it felt like days since we've seen him and the chances of finding your friend in a crowd is pretty slim. One last song played and we endured more roughness, but Adam basically blocked anyone who could potentially hurt us and I got a sweet view of the stage. Once their last song was over, everyone found each other. I guess we all weren't that far from each other in the first place.

Everyone seemed satisfied with the experience of attending a Brand New concert which made me happy because I was pretty fucking satisfied. This is the best show I've ever been to and I'm pretty damn grateful that I could spend it with not shitty people.

Trip To Michigan | Common Ground Fest

07/08/14--07/09/14


I'm just going to start off by saying that this might have been one of the best weeks that I've ever had in my life.
At about 5am on Tuesday morning, Adam and I ventured off to Michigan for a festival to see Brand New. You can only imagine how excited we were considering the last few times we tried to get tickets, they sold out within ten minutes of them being available for purchase. We live in New Jersey so we had to tough out the 11 hour drive. It wasn't that bad, but it was extremely boring at some point. I literally was falling asleep at the wheel after a while and I noticed Adam doing the same.

Getting out of Jersey was so easy, but Pennsylvania.... driving the length of Pennsylvania was the longest part of the trip (about 5 hours), not to mention there's probably an hour of no rest stop. You can only imagine our excitement when we finally reached Ohio. And of course we had to say "Ohio is for lovers" the whole time we were there.

Once we reached Michigan, we had an hour of our trip left and it felt like the longest hour ever. I guess being cooped up in a car for ten hours didn't help. We were both awake at this point and every time we saw a sign for Detroit, we joked about stopping there really quick even though it was definitely out of the question. Once we reached the hotel, it felt like a whole new day. The first thing I did was jump on the bed a little bit. Just a little bit!

The show didn't start for another hour or so, so we decided to enjoy the pool that the hotel had to offer. I forgot my bathing suit, so I ended up wearing my workout clothes which kinda felt weird, but I love swimming and being in the water so I had to! I was just hating on Adam the whole time cause he remembered his swimwear and he doesn't even know how to swim. It's like it doesn't even count. When we reached the pool, we were happy to see that no one was there at all. It was basically a private swimming session. We decided to spend that time teaching Adam how to swim. It was a fun experience because he looked really silly trying to swim and paddle forward. It just wouldn't work and I couldn't describe what had to be done without him doing it wrong the whole time. I always thought swimming was something that came naturally, but I guess not. Not at all. After about a good 30 minutes to an hour, Adam was finally able to somewhat learn how to swim. It was definitely progress, but he still needs a lot of improvement. I plan on training him more. *insert winky face*

We got ready and made our way to the park that the festival was located in. Once we were in, I took in the environment from the hot food stands, the merch tents, to the stages. Everything seemed so relaxed and fun. I kinda wanted to live there for at least another day or two.

The first band we saw was Say Anything, which is awesome because they're a favorite of mine and Adam's. They were amazing and I was glad that the crowd wasn't afraid to make a pit or dance in the crowd. I loved the show in general and teared up when they played their song called Cemetery. It's a romantic song and I know, I know. How lame I cried to a beautiful romantic song, but I don't care. It's Say Anything!

Adam and I began to make our way to the stage that Brand New would be playing on and since we were in Michigan, it was harder to want to push through people to get closer because it seemed like everyone was ok with where they were and we felt rude doing so. These Michigan people have a lot more manners than us on east coast. I was very impressed and sad at the same time. It was weird. REALLY WEIRD. I've never seen a crowd that didn't have people pushing through it every damn second. Again, refreshing, but poop at the same time.

Once Brand New started, I was just glad that I was finally going to "see" them. And by "see" I mean I'm really short - like 5' so more like watch people's backs while hearing Brand New and tiptoeing to catch a glimpse of the stage and maybe, MAYBE Jesse Lacey. I'm totally investing in elevator shoes by the way.

The performance was amazing, but I felt like the crowd wasn't going as hard as they should have been. They were all singing the words, but no one was moving that much. I don't know what it was, but I felt like there should have been at least one mosh pit! That's what I live for, that's where all the fun is! Michigan, you guys don't know what you're missing! I still had fun, but I was kinda bummed that there was no rough housing. I get scared of tall guys aimlessly running, jumping, dancing, punching everywhere, but I think that's part of the fun. Almost dying gets your adrenaline going.

As the show was coming to a close, we were instructed by Jesse himself to see a band called Dinosaur Pile-Up after, but we opted out of that mainly because we just saw Brand New and all their amazingness, why ruin that with something we care less about? We headed back to the hotel, ate a bit and chilled until I was too tired to be awake anymore.

We woke up the next morning for the free breakfast. More like 30 minutes before the free breakfast was closed. I got some eggs, chopped up ham and waited for the waffle maker to be free. A nice fellow who also attended the festival helped me with the waffle-maker. Adam and I were sitting fairly close to waffle guy's group and we found out they were from NY, which is a much longer trip than NJ. We thought we were crazy, but obviously these guys go hard. It was nice being able to talk to people and kinda make friends along the way.

Adam and I were feeling pretty great about making it to Michigan without any car problems, so we only hoped the ride home would do the same for us. Soooooooo... the first problem we ran into on the ride home was Adam feeling sick, and then Adam throwing up. It was up to me to drive at this point, which I really didn't mind for obvious reasons because I would have to drive at some point anyway. After switching a few times it was Adam's turn to drive and we were already in Pennsylvania. We had about 4 hours of our trip left to go and I see some smoke coming from his car, but I'm not exactly sure if it's from his car. I ask him about it and he told me that it was probably not his car. There was construction going on and I assumed everything was probably alright. He notices that his low coolant light went on and asked him if that was ok, he said it's normal and nothing should happen. I guess we should have paid more attention cause at some point his car just gets extremely hot and his engine is at the hottest that it can be.

Luckily, we were already near an exit, so we drove off the exit and stopped in a lot where another car was chillin. He figured out that one of the tubes of his coolant tank came off, so there was coolant leaking everywhere. We needed to find a way to get that tube back on the tank or else we couldn't get home. The guy in the other car offers some help and he actually had a tool that could keep the tube attached. We also had to put leftover coolant from Adam's trunk and basically the rest of our water into the tank to get his car going again. This only delayed us from going home about an hour.

There was about 15 minutes left of our ride to go and at this point after all the tolls and using all our money, we were at low fuel. It was getting pretty uncomfortable until we decided we had to get more gas. We set the gps up to find the nearest station and it takes us the opposite way from home. It was pretty ridiculous, Adam was getting stressed and a little mean to be honest, but it was understandable. We found a gas station just in time on our route and just went for it. That last five dollars did wonders and we finally made it home.

I would do it all again.