My Favorite Quotes

I love reading quotes. For some reason I find it to be really inspiring. So here are some of my favorites!

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
— Abraham Lincoln

"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself."
— Robert Frost

"No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond."
— C.S. Lewis

"No relationship is perfect, ever. There are always some ways you have to bend, to compromise, to give something up in order to gain something greater...The love we have for each other is bigger than these small differences. And that's the key. It's like a big pie chart, and the love in a relationship has to be the biggest piece. Love can make up for a lot."
— Sarah Dessen (This Lullaby)

"Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy."
— Albert Einstein

We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will."
— Chuck Palahniuk

"As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot."
— John Lennon

"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world."
— Oscar Wilde

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."
— Eleanor Roosevelt

"You may not see it now," said the Princess of Pure Reason, looking knowingly at Milo's puzzled face, "but whatever we learn has a purpose and whatever we do affects everything and everyone else, if even in the tiniest way. Why, when a housefly flaps his wings, a breeze goes round the world; when a speck of dust falls to the ground, the entire planet weighs a little more; and when you stamp your foot, the earth moves slightly off its course. Whenever you laugh, gladness spreads like the ripples in the pond; and whenever you're sad, no one anywhere can be really happy. And it's much the same thing with knowledge, for whenever you learn something new, the whole world becomes that much richer."
— Norton Juster (The Phantom Tollbooth)

"Time is a gift, given to you, given to give you the time you need, the time you need to have the time of your life. "
— Norton Juster (The Phantom Tollbooth)

"If I know what love is, it is because of you."
— Hermann Hesse

"To hold our tongues when everyone is gossiping, to smile without hostility at people and institutions, to compensate for the shortage of love in the world with more love in small, private matters; to be more faithful in our work, to show greater patience, to forgo the cheap revenge obtainable from mockery and criticism: all these are things we can do. "
— Hermann Hesse

"When you like someone, you like them in spite of their faults. When you love someone, you love them with their faults."
— Hermann Hesse

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It's funny how life works out. I spent a huge amount of time with my Bradley boys and girls <3 who are just about the most amazing people ever! They helped me realize a lot of things about myself and helped me realize what I wanted in another person. I had basically decided that I was done with relationships and anything attached to them for a very long time. I just wanted the space to be me. I never really realized that I could be ME, as long as the guy I was with was accepting of the person I really was. For most of my relationships I'd always been whatever I thought a guy would like the most. It was a subconscious thing, of course. I never knew I was doing it at the time. But this past experience gave me the understanding of what I really needed out of a relationship, and the type of person I should be with. It also gave me a lot of insight into how I am in relationships. I'm very giving and very loving, as long as I know the feeling is mutual (and of course, in many cases, it wasn't REALLY...haha), I'll do anything to help someone, and I'm very loyal. This causes a problem because for some reason, guys (SOME of the ones I've dated) just don't seem to like a nice girl.
ANYWAY, after taking most of the summer to just be single and not worry about dating any guys at all, I regained my confidence and happiness and strength. Then of course, something (or someone) got thrown into the mix when I least expected it. I immediately was attracted to him, but because I was scared of getting hurt, I was hesitant to actually be with him. I took a few weeks to really figure things out. Finally, I decided that not being with this person could potentially be the biggest mistake I could ever make. I mean, why the hell not? I was incredibly happy when I was with them, we had a lot of fun together, he made me laugh, he accepted me for who I was (a huge goofy nerd), and most of all, I felt really comfortable and secure with him. This last part was basically what sealed the deal for me because for most of my relationships I've had major trust issues (which, in most cases ended up being for good reasons...since most of the guys I've been with became interested in other girls before breaking up with me).
The point of all this is, that for some reason, some part of me was willing to let the terrible experience I had with a person, keep me from being happy with someone I really liked, because I was scared. I can now say that it WOULD have been an incredibly awful mistake to not be with my boyfriend. Sometimes bad things happen and you get hurt and you're afraid to let someone back into your life. But, you bounce back. Being scared is no reason to miss out on all the good things life can bring your way. Take a chance; jump into something wholeheartedly. Fight your fears and learn to trust another person AND yourself. Take your bad experience and find the "something good" you gained out of it, whether it be your strength, or a new understanding about who you are, or just what you learned from it. Take the bad, and try and see the good through it. You'll live without regrets and live a very fulfilling life. I mean, isn't that really what life is all about??

Happiness is the Best Revenge

Remnants of the past; broken down memories of imaginary occurrences
But time heals all wounds,
in this world of hope and love,
and my happiness is the best revenge.

The past will always follow you, no matter how fast you run...

This isn't saying that you can't move forward in your life. I'm simply stating that there are certain events that occur that are so life altering, that no matter how many years ago they happened, they still follow you every single day. There is not a day that goes by where I don't think about how my father is doing, or what he is doing. Not a day that goes by where I don't wonder what it would be like to meet my little sister and hug her and kiss her and teach her things about life, and watch her grow up before my eyes. Life without my Dad has become the norm now. So normal in fact, that it's difficult to imagine what things would be like if he was still around. Most of my days I can think about my Dad and not shed a tear. Yesterday was NOT one of those days. For some reason my iPod kindly decided to play a song that my father would always sing to me. Billy Joel's Lullaby. Needless to say I pretty much cried for a good 20 minutes after that one. It got me thinking too. It's been 6 years since I last saw him. Our last few days together were pretty horrible. I remember that it was the week of our garage sale. My Mom was selling our beautiful house in Deal and we were pretty much getting rid of all our amazing antiques and items we'd collected over the years. My father had gotten wind of disturbing news about his daughter (she lives in Africa) and since the woman he was dating there was completely out of her gourd, she wouldn't allow him to contact her. My father, being an alcoholic, proceeded to get himself completely sloshed and publicly humiliate himself and my family in front of the huge amount of people that had gathered at our garage sale. He hopped on my bike and drove into tables and people before crashing at the end of the driveway. I remember him screaming "Fuck you!" over and over at my mother and me. I guess someone called the cops, so they came and brought him back to our house and left him in the back yard to cool off. Of course, this was a huge mistake on their part because my Dad turned on me. He started screaming at me that I "wasn't his daughter" and that he "didn't and couldn't love me." I told him how much I hated him for what he had put us through so many years ago when he first left us and that I thought he was pathetic. I remember the look on his face when I said this. He was no longer my father. He was possessed. Whether it was the alcohol that took hold, or his own dementia, something made him hate me, loathe me, even. I could see the fire burning in his eyes and I knew that if I let him come near me, he would kill me. I turned and ran, with him drunkenly chasing after me, screaming God knows what at the top of his lungs. I slammed my door and locked it behind me, to only have him throwing himself against it, screaming that he would kill me if he got his hands on me. It was at this point that a battle began in my brain. Here was a man, who had been as good of a father as one could be as a bipolar alcoholic, who is drunkenly threatening my life. I kept going back and forth over the idea of calling the police as I sat quietly in the comforting blanket of my dark closet, clutching my phone in my hands. At this point, I didn't care if he hated me forever, and I didn't care if my family did either.
I remember hearing that voice on the other side of the line and just completely losing it. I explained to her that my father was drunker than he'd ever been and that he was going to kill me if he broke down my door. She sent the police over immediately and stayed on the phone with me until they arrived. My father was handcuffed and brought outside while a very tall officer came over and hugged me. He asked me if I was afraid of my father and I told him that I was. He asked if I wanted my Dad to be taken to jail.
What went through my mind at that moment was this; my father had put us through years and years of mental torment. I dealt with his drinking my entire life, constantly finding hidden bottles and empty wine glasses placed throughout our homes. I dealt with him paying me off with cash to bribe me not to tell my mother that I caught him drinking. I dealt with him rarely coming to a dance recital or swim meet or football game to see me march. I dealt with him working through dinners when he was supposed to be eating with us at the table, and dealt with his screaming battles with my mother when she found out he was stealing money from her. I dealt with him walking...no, running, out of our lives and leaving us behind, $30,000 in debt. His lying, his stories, his dream world that he lived in which kept him separate from us...we dealt with it all, because we loved him. And because I loved him, I sent him to jail. I knew it was the only thing I could do to get him to realize the severity of what he'd put us through. The next morning he was sobbingly apologetic. I didn't come home to see him. I didn't come home to say goodbye. He flew back to Tanzania the next day.
I never thought we'd be a divorced family, but we became one. It took five years of him lying about when he would return home to us, one month, no, five months, no wait, 10 months...turned into five years, but my mom finally divorced him. It was settled on February 26, 2001. Two days after my 21st birthday. Honestly, it's difficult to shake the past, and it's harder to forgive those who've made your past difficult, but it is easy to admit that it shapes you into a different person. I'm a different person because of my father. I've learned that sometimes, even when you think you can't forgive someone, you can when you are ready. I've also learned that sometimes you just have to let go and that every second of your life is important and you shouldn't take anything for granted. Things really do happen for a reason, whether you understand the reason or not. While I don't know the reason why this happened to me, I do know what the outcome was. This experience showed me how strong I really am and that I don't ever want to travel down the path that my father has. I appreciate my mother more than I ever had before and I wouldn't give up what we've shared together for anything. People always ask me if I could change what happened, would I? I wouldn't! While I do want my mom to not be alone, I personally feel that I've managed pretty well without a father. I'm really proud of who I've become and I'm also grateful that things didn't end up worse than they were. I still speak with my Dad. He lives in Tanzania with my little sister, and her sister and brother. We e-mail on and off, and when I get the time to get a calling card I can speak with him and my siblings. Life never works out how you imagine it. Shitty things happen to good people; it's just a matter of how you deal with those things that gets you through them. I never stopped loving my Dad through all this. I was fortunate that I could forgive him, but we both know that I will NEVER forget.

Fire In the Sky

So, here it is. My first blog entry. Yes, I've given in to this rising trend, however, I'm excited to begin this journey. Being that I'm gearing up to begin writing my first book, I figured it may be a good idea to start a blog to document life. It's not so much that I'm into myself, but more so that I wouldn't mind having something to look back on to remind me of things that have occurred. Rather than making this JUST a photography blog, I figured I'd just give myself the freedom to post whatever I feel. So, here it goes...

Tonight, rather than heading out to Red Bank and dealing with the hoards of obnoxious drunk people and obscene amounts of traffic, I opted to spend the evening with my mom. As some of you may know, she is my best friend. My father left when I was 16 years old, and since then we have been each others support system. She keeps me sane and has helped me through so many tough times, especially in these recent months. She also just turned 69 this past May. It's unfortunate, but I realize that our time together grows shorter with each passing year, so you can understand my decision to ditch my friends and the parties to spend a wonderful night with my mother, celebrating our freedom. We dined at Olive Garden, went shopping at the mall, and then headed over the the Deal Test Site to feast our eyes on the BEAUTIFUL fireworks. Ocean Twp. outdid itself this year. These were spectacular. Red Bank, eat your heart out. It was far more enjoyable sitting in a gigantic open field, than being squashed arm to arm with some annoying screaming child coupled with an obnoxious woman kicking your back every five seconds because she is pissed off you are seated in front of her, (yes this actually happened to me 2 years ago). We chowed down on our Toasted Almond ice cream bars and gazed, like two captivated children, upon the fire in the sky. It was a touching moment, really. I think we were both thinking the same exact thing, because for a moment, we turned and looked at one another with tears in our eyes. We cherish these moments we share together and I believe I may even cherish them a bit more than she, since I will have many years to look back on these memories. I am fortunate to have this bond with my mother, I realized this long ago. What we share is fairly uncommon and I am grateful for every second I have with her. She is the constant in my life. When my dad ran out, she stepped up to the plate, becoming Mom and Dad wrapped up in one body. She could have crumbled to pieces. She could have run out on me as well. But she chose to set an example for her daughter. She taught me what it means to be strong and she showed me that you should always stand up for yourself and never allow anyone to walk all over you. She taught me that it's okay to be alone and that you don't need another person to make you feel complete. But most of all, she taught me that life is pretty rough, that sometimes there is more bad than good, but that all the pain you experience makes you even more receptive to the joys and the overwhelming beauty of LIVING. This is life! The pain, the sorrow, the anguish, the joy, the laughter, the tears, all of it...and man, it is beautiful...