New Year, new you? Right now, new me.

It's been said that the first time the ball dropped in Times Square was in 1907, while the tradition of setting New Year's resolutions dates all the way back to the Babylonians. As this year starts to dwindle down, I take a step back to reflect on what 2009 has brought me. Resolutions made and unkept. Resolutions intended for the 2010.

This year has been a trying year for me, to say the least. From family feuds, to make-ups, to learning to let go, to moving, to finally being selfish. It seems that every year, by the end of the year, so many of us exclaim "I can't wait for 2000-whatever!" Why is it that so many of us only think to make resolutions just because a new year is beginning? Why is that we don't wake up every morning, and immediately make a change? Why do so many of us take our business practices and apply them to our every day life? All too often we live by deadlines, and the habit of procrastinating our growth as we reach them.

I had high hopes for 2009, as the end of 2008 came to a close. I had found new inspiration in my life that challenged me to think deeper, to communicate more, to let people in. I had started focusing on what I was really feeling and what I was trying so hard to escape from. In some odd sense, this inspiration had almost become a hero to me. A hero to a lost soul. Lost in a world, consumed so deeply in everyone else. Brought to surface with conversation, insight, and understanding.

But 2009 didn't start off great for me. In fact, it was heartbreaking on a level that I never thought possible. My family had the biggest divide in our history, at least a divide that had actually mattered to me. I had never felt so alone, betrayed, and just fed up. Fed up with the human race as it stands. Had the good in people really gone away? Have people lived a life of bullshit for so long, that its all we know anymore? I didn't speak to my family for almost 4 1/2 months, and I had no idea the challenge of growth I was about to embark on. I had looked around, and saw the people that were standing so close and had realized that its possible that family isn't just made up of people you share DNA with. Its comprised of a group of people that love each other. Love each other to the core, a sometimes imperfect core. People that listen, support, and encourage. People that I will hold close to my heart till the day I die.

2009 sped its way along. I lost my full time job to layoffs in February due to the economy, but luckily fell into a much better position for a boss that has done more for me than even he probably knows. A love that I had thought was over came back and still ran through my veins, and pulled at my heartstrings. Plans were made, details unkept. I had realized the unhappiness in my heart far beyond broken relationships. Made the selfish decision to move, to better me. As 2009 came to a close, even in its last days, I started to think how ridiculously terrible this year has been for me. Pity party table of one. But ironically as I started writing this blog, I had realized that maybe this year has been a blessing. I had fallen deeper in love with my friends, I was blessed with meeting and growing close to new people, I had rediscovered my dreams and held them at the importance that I should. Maybe my resolution for 2009 just came a little late.

A new year sparks new hope. New life. A new start. Some people decide to quit smoking. Most go on some ridiculous diet that usually fails in the second month. The tradition of setting a resolution has lost its potency. People fall victim to comfort, and lose the drive for continuous growth. Why wait for the end of a year, to make a promise to yourself for the success of the next? As the promise of a new year fell upon me, I had decided that there would be no place better than the place my dreams lie...New York City. And there would be no resolution better than the resolution to never stop growing, to never forget myself, to always go where my dreams lie.

Rolling Stone

I remember waking up early one morning. And by early, I actually mean early, not the early I had grown to adapt to working later in the afternoons. It was 6am when I rolled over and looked at my phone. I remember feeling discontent and anxious that morning, like a sickness in my stomach. I tried to go back to sleep, but I couldn't. Like most times when I lay in bed, my mind was racing. I find so many things to distract myself with during the day, ways to escape a lot of my thoughts, but somehow they always find me in bed. Which ironically, leads to most of the thoughts I have in the first place....we'll get into that later.

I had done the usual, check my emails, read the drunk texts from my friends the night before, check the ever addicting social sites...but I couldn't ignore this feeling. This wasn't just a pink elephant in the room anymore. It was a herd of pink elephants doing the twist at the foot of the bed. I needed change, and it had never been so clear.

I had tossed around the idea of change so many times before. Knowing that my soul was no longer being fed. Knowing that of all the things I wanted to accomplish, somehow, I just couldn't do them here. Knowing that if I wanted to have a different life, I actually had to make that change myself. I remember driving to work one day last winter. A box truck had passed me on the freeway, and on the side read an inscription: "Life doesn't get better by chance, it gets better by change." And for whatever reason that morning, that's all I could think about.

I needed a break from whatever reality I called life. There was a girl, playing hide and go seek with me. But no matter how fast I ran, or what strategic plan I had made to catch her, I never could. Every time I caught up, she disappeared. I was playing hide and go seek with my own shadow. And in my shadow lay all of my passions. I couldn't catch her, and for the first time, I finally realized why. I had spent so much time, spending so much effort, into making everyone else around me happy. I have an uncontrollable desire to feel loved, and with that desire, comes an uncontrollable obession to make other people happy. I had grown to believe that if I can make someone else happy, in turn, they will just love me. But what happens if they don't? Why was I looking to so many external sources, when the secret to be loved can only be found in yourself? I had spent so much of my energy being a support for family, friends, and lovers that I never left any for myself. For the first time in my life I knew that I HAD to come first. I knew that I had to do something selfish. I had lost myself in everyone else's happiness, dreams, and passions. I had looked to so many people to fill a void that undeniably was in my heart. Sure, I am a product of some bad situations, situations that have absolutely shaped who I am as a woman, but I couldn't hide in that excuse anymore. I know what makes me happy. So if most unhappy people are unhappy because they don't know what MAKES them happy....and I stand here, KNOWING what makes me happy, why I am still so confused? If I feel like the answer to all my questions are printed on a banner being held by the twisting elephants, why I am still so reluctant?

I lay awake that morning for six hours. I'm not really sure why. I don't know if I was waiting for a reaction within myself. Or if maybe I was trying to talk myself out of it. Or maybe I was just finally content in my decision. But for whatever reason, I lay there. Quiet and still. And I knew. I got up, put whatever belongings I had in that room in my ironically hot pink totes, and started the process.

A lot of people have asked why I finally decided to move away. And for most, their questions have gone unanswered. I won't deny that there were influences in my decision, and some know what those influences were. To those that don't, you won't find that answer here. But let me state for the record that I left for me. I am on a journey to finding me, to feeding my own dreams, passions and soul. Is there ever a point in your life, when reinventing yourself is inappropriate? My answer is no. And that is exactly what I plan on doing.

A Love Affair with Music

L-O-V-E....four letters. Four letters that become a word. A four letter word that can turn your life upside down. A feeling that hits your soul. For some, it becomes a lifetime journey. A deep longing. A quest for something that can make a person feel whole. A passion so deep, it bleeds through your veins.

I fell in love with music. And it came unexpectedly. It wasn't anything I was used to, and most definitely not what I was looking for. It was out of the ordinary for me, but maybe at the point I was at in my life, it was something that I needed.

It was a passionate affair. A love so deep it made my body ache. I had laughed harder than I can remember. I had felt my inside smile. Whether I had invited it or not, it had touched my soul, and for the first time in ages I felt alive again. I had become so cynical, I wasn't sure that love really existed. Or maybe I just wasn't sure that it existed for me. Music came into my life, and I loved. I loved with everything I had in me.
Music didn't just make me laugh, it made me cry. I cried. I cried long and hard. I had realized that in all that I had come to love, music couldn't love me the same way in return. It had become venom and I had started to resent it. There is selfishness with music that is so deeply rooted. It is covered in all its glitz and glamour. It's hidden in all its lyrics of love. Sometimes music can break your heart. And it had definitely broken mine. It wasn't long before I realized that music had deceived me. It gobbled me up, and spit me out. I was left empty, blank, and confused. I had become such a part of music, but had music truly become a part of me? How can something that you love so much, and feel so much love from, become something that can hurt just as deeply? I had walked away and realized that for the first time, I really let it all go. I really let it in. And when I looked around, I realized it had left me. And maybe that's what it was supposed to do.

My love affair with music came and went. I sang lyrics of love, and lyrics of pain. There were lyrics of betrayal and disappointment, and equally lyrics of regret and forgiveness. Songs of love and passion. The feeling of forever and the loss of time. Music had hurt me once before, but I had never stopped loving it. I never stopped listening to it, and enjoying it all around me. I had become lost in all that it was to me. But did music need me as much as I needed it? The thing that I learned about my love for music, is that even as I sit here, bitter, hurt, and angry....it was worth it. Maybe music cannot love me the way I need it to, or the way I want. Maybe music doesn't long for me the way I do it...but it loves me nonetheless. In it's imperfect ways, it loves me. And in some way, it needs me too.

No one anticipates heartache when they fall in love. But heartache is a risk you take. The difference is embarking on a love affair that is not just worth the risk, but actually worth the heartache. Because when you are alone, and the tears finally slow down...can that love still fill the cavity of your soul? Is it possible that love really does conquer all? Maybe not in the storybook version we would all like, but maybe in its own way it does. The variables of love change with the seasons. Love affairs come and go, some memories begin to fade, and the heart eventually heals. The only constant, is that no matter how much heartbreak music and its love leaves, there are still only 24 hours in a day. No matter how much I miss music, how much I sadly still long for it, I know that this day will eventually end. And against all resistance, tomorrow will begin.

Loving something, truly loving something, requires you to step out of a comfort zone. To give in to fear. To let go of every inhibition and just be. There are no rules for love. No manual containing steps to avoid heartache. To love something, you have to tear away all its layers. All its glitz and glamour. Erase all of the footnotes. Truly love the paper that all the imperfect lyrics are written on.

I love music, and for some brief period in my journey, I know that music loved me too.Photo by Nadine Miranda

Why blog, why now?

First and foremost, let me apologize way in advance for the way this blog will probably go. I don't follow the rules of writing, and most likely, this wont follow them either. I write my thoughts down just as they enter my brain, being lucky if I decide to spell check. Most likely I will lose most of you because I hide my insecurities in symbolism. But that's ok. You'll find a way to follow it for exactly what its worth.

I have decided to create a blog for myself because I feel that I am embarking on a new adventure. The last time I felt this way, my life was turned upside down. Well, its time to stand on my head again and go back to the drawing board.

Too regularly I am told that I am private. That people don't always know what's going on with me, even my closest of close friends. I guess I was just built that way. Maybe this will turn into a forum for insight. A little sneak into what is going on in my world.

Late 2008 I had decided that I was going to write a book. A real one. With a spine. A cover. My story. If I am the only one that ever owns a copy, I am ok with that. This is just some inspiration.

Welcome to my life, friends.