You may never understand why

It's 6 AM and New Year's Eve and if you asked me to tell you how I was feeling right now - I know I wouldn't be able to. I never thought that I would ever be surrounded with so much love in my life and still feel so uncertain about everything to the point where it was harder to sleep at night.

I keep wondering if it's worth me getting upset over this. Wasn't it a loss in the first place? What if you woke up and the thing you thought you had always lost... might not be lost after all? Does that mean that even if you go through all the effort of searching for it - that if it goes lost again...everything is back where it was? And I remain the same?

Somehow, no matter how many times I might try to tell myself that you can't feel loss over something already lost...that I inevitably will. Because initially, isn't it always 'hope' that we feel anyway? 'Hope' that we could find that missing piece to our puzzle...and then when the hope disappears, it isn't necessarily the actual piece that we're missing. I think I'd start to miss the feeling of hope that it was ever there in the first place.

I am a step away from possibly knowing everything...or maybe even having more questions than I know what to do with. How do you differentiate between the questions of a 6-year old and the logical questions of a 23-year old? You can't, I guess. There is probably little difference of importance in my mind between: "Whose nose do I have?" and "Were you economically in hardship when you made that decision 23 years ago?"

Who knows what is going to happen on Friday. I am not even sure if I have an idealistic pan out of how I would want it to go because it hasn't crossed my mind.

But one thing is for sure...please don't ask me how...I have missed you.

A Day To Remember (or perhaps to forget)

There are four pages of a scribbled letter tucked inside my black and white marbled notebook. It was the beginnings of a future blog post for this blog - my annual letter to my birthmother - telling her the struggles and triumphs of my 23rd year of being alive.

For the past week and a half, I, for some reason, kept holding off actually sitting down and typing it out here, not because it was too personal or too gritty...honestly, if you had asked me why I wouldn't have been able to give you a straight answer. Maybe it was because I have been so consumed with the move from Dundalk. (Yes, I have finally LEFT Dumb-dalk for good...and will post pictures of the barren room once I find my camera in one of these boxes that are looming in my room.) Whatever the reason, it just never got done.

And maybe it was a sign that I was meant to read it to her in person...

I don't really know where to begin with the rest of this post. I was trying to think of some clever epithet that might transition into the whole point of the post - but at this point, my brain is too fried with an excess abundance of emotion and utter cluster-fuckery (I just made that word up.) to even be witty or even give a hoot whether I am witty or not.

December 23, 2008 @ around 1 AM will be forever seared in my brain. If and when I have children, and I reflect on this tale to fill bedtime story nights, I will probably still struggle to piece together just exactly what got seared into my brain: a cautionary tale or a Christmas miracle. It is too early yet to decide.

But whatever it will be - what it is right now, at the present, is the exact time that I was trying to get rid of a nasty migraine by sleeping it away... and my 2nd night sleeping on the mattress that is in what will eventually be my bedroom in my Aunt's house. It seems ordinary and simple enough, and started out as any other night ...except that 1 AM will also forever be seared into my brain as the time my mother came into my bedroom to wake me up with the news.

The news that my birthparents have been searching for me and want to meet me.

It is now 11:02 pm of the very same day and I think I must have written the above sentence or said variations of it to myself at least a hundred thousand times. And yet even with saying it a hundred thousand more, I do not think that the sentence's true meaning will ever fully sink itself into my brain and channel signals of acknowledgement to my being.

Even now, there is still detachment from that sentence - as if tomorrow that whole sequence: me sleeping, my mom rushing into my bedroom in her jacket, shaking me awake, her eyes lighting up, and me sleepily opening my eyes to watch her lips move to form the words of that very same sentence....that whole sequence will be nothing but a dream. An afterthought to another dream that I had had.

But a part of me knows that it wasn't. That it was real. But I am not ready to believe that part. All day long I have been trying to figure out how to sum up how I feel and I just can't...it is hard to explain how in one moment - everything has changed with nothing happening. How just words could change my entire world and turn it upside down with no action following.

I am, Blog, scared shitless. Today I have felt happy, annoyed, joyous, angry, resentful, sadness, fear and frustration in succession of each other and even at times, simultaneously.

I have so much to say and yet have no words to say it with.

I have so many questions and yet am not quite sure I want to know the answers.

I want...and yet wish it was easier just to walk away...at the exact same time.

And despite all these crazy feelings - the one thing I keep dwelling on is the revelation that they searched for me.

These took the place of medicine and tissues today

I woke up this morning with a huge fever, and decided that I needed to call out from work. Not only did I get the sleep that I needed, I also got a large amount of H2O which I learned today that I should be drinking in enough quantities so that eventually I will piss out clear fluids. (How gracious of me to share that with all of you, I know.)

Along with the slumber, water and mounds of tissues piled up next to my bed, I listened to several songs on slow repeat like a nice slow IV drip of therapeutic sounds. Starting with a steady drip of John Mayer courtesy of newcomer Gabe Bondoc (one of my favorite covers of this song):



And then onto "Right Here"... you know you loved this song... hahaha

If God was on my doorstep this morning...

I would re-enact that scene from "Say Anything" and blare this song out of a 1980's boombox as loud as the volume dial would go. This is the new single from the highly-anticipated (for me and my best friend anyway) album from The Fray. It's is self-titled and although you might think it's too early for this yet -- this song has become my all-time life-anthem and will now replace that wretched smelling pink bookbag that I still have hung in my closet from my homeless days. Not only is this song more therapeutic, but I'm sure my room will stop smelling so bad now that the bookbag has had its proper burial in the trash.



I found God on the corner of First and Amistad
where the west was all but won
All alone, smoking his last cigarette
I said "where have you been?"
he said "ask anything"

"Where were you
When everything was falling apart?
All my days
Were spent by the telephone
It never rang
And all I needed was a voice
It never came
To the corner of First and Amistad"

Lost and insecure
you found me, you found me
lying on the floor
surrounded, surrounded
Why'd you have to wait?
Where were you, where were you?
Jst a little late
you found me, you found me

In the end everyone ends up alone
losing her,
the only one whose ever known
who i am, who im not, who i want to be
no way to know,
how lost you will be next to me

lost and insecure
you found me, you found me
lying on the floor
why'd you have to wait?
where were you where were you?
just a little late
you found me, you found me

early morning city wakes
I've been calling
for years and years and years and years
and you never left me no messages
you never send me no letters
you've got some kind of nerve
sticking all i want...

lost and insecure
you found me, you found me
lying on the floor
where were you where were you?
lost and insecure
you found me you found me
lying on the floor
surrounded, surrounded
why'd you have to wait?
where were you where were you?
just a little late
you found me, you found me

yeah yeah

Why'd you have to wait
to find me, to find me?

Music was my breakfast this morning...

Who needs eggs and bacon when you've got Kanye West and Holly Brook? I had these two songs on rotate all morning long on my drive into work. And you know what? They are playing right now, too.

I have a big collection of music because for me, it's what keeps me sane. Sometimes there are just no words to explain the emotions that you feel and its just better described through lyrics. Thank God we've got some brilliant artists out there so I can release my good and bad energy every morning drive with my iPod cranked up loud.

This song is the 2nd song off of Kanye West's last dropped album: Graduation. "Champion" is awesome to me because even though the tone of the song is upbeat and kind of a "dance track" sound, if you listen to the lyrics, they are super bittersweet. It completely reminds me of my personality when shit goes bad: I smile, and seem upbeat, keep focusing on the positive yet I'll never forget that there is still sadness and frustration in my life. And eventually, I know I'll get back to being the "champion" that I know I'm supposed to be. I am quite aware of all the controversy that surrounds Mr. West, but I am not one to make sudden opinions about music artists based on what I hear in the media and what I see displayed on my TV screen. So he hit some guy...everyone's entitled to get pissed off, right? Good music is good music to me and if it helps me out of my emotional distress - well then, I'd hit that papporazzi myself.



I absolutely love Holly Brook. I love her look, I love her style, I love her voice. When I first found her album "Like Blood Like Honey", I listened to every single song more than ten thousand times over and over again. I found myself nodding vigorously with tissue clasped in hand as I listened to every lyric like it was a Lifetime movie special thinking, Oh my God, Holly Brook - you GET ME, you REALLY GET ME. This song is just one of my many favorites from this album, and if you ever get a chance you should really listen to it from cover to cover. Every song is completely melodic and brilliantly written. Plus I think that you'll agree with me when I say that after listening to it in its entirety, you feel like you should have somehow gone through a life changing journey or something and become completely depressed when you realize you've been just sitting on your couch surrounded by a pile of used tissues that equate to the amount of sorrow that you actually have in your life. *le sigh*




PS. For both of these, it really is worth it to check out the lyrics.

Just for the record...

I will probably never be okay with how it all went down. And it will probably always leave this bitter taste in my mouth whenever I think about it - and me always wondering, what exactly it was that made the final taste so bitter?

There are so much of my feelings that I want to exert upon - and so many of my thoughts that I have kept to myself, mostly because I really haven't found a way to make them make sense outside my mind, but maybe one day: I'll be sitting in my house reading a book or out on the beach with the waves crashing in and I will be able to grab my journal and write down everything I feel and think at this exact moment in ways I never thought I'd be able to express. This is the act of composting. This is my way of spring cleaning for my soul.

My Coming to America

When I was around 10 or 11 years old, I used to feel really uncomfortable and uneasy when it came to my friends and the conversation of birthdays. I'm not sure if your peers at that age were anything like mine, but it became some one's novelty idea to state not only their date of birth but the exact time stamp as well. You would be in the middle of 5th grade English class, and it'd be Mary Sue's birthday and when asked if it was, indeed, her birthday, Mary Sue would reply: "Yes! But my Mom says I wasn't born until 1:45 pm exactly!"

At that age, the fact that I couldn't give you the exact time of my birth unsettled me in some way. I don't know if I can dig that far back into my past to precisely explain to you why I felt the way that I did, and I'm not even sure that if you could talk to the 10-year old me that I would be able to explain it any better. I just did.

I felt embarrassed, and overwhelmed with just how embarrassed I felt over some minute detail that in the grand scheme of things, held little to no consequence if not to just be some sentimental value to throw into the pages of a baby book. But God, no matter how lame you might have tried to twist it to be, I would have wanted nothing more than to tell you what time I was born.

When I think back at the significance of my feelings as a kid, I guess I could self-analyze and tell you that this obsession and immense feeling of hurt/embarrassment that came with not knowing the time of day I was brought into this world would probably stem from the deeper-rooted problem of just not knowing anything. It could be, but I can't exactly be sure. Perhaps you could just chalk it up to pure peer pressure and peer anxiety of wanting to fit in. I guess maybe essentially that's all my adoption issues were - this identity confusion and overwhelming sense of wanting to find a place to belong. Who knows. (I sure as hell don't, even after all these years.)

Today, though, today is my redemption. Today would eventually become the counter-attack for my self-esteem during the early years when I would battle with my adoption demons over what made me feel more "whole". And as I grew older, and into my now early twenties, I have been able to remember this day with a tainted bittersweetness. The kind of bittersweetness you feel when speaking of a loved one: can't live with it, can't live without it.

Today is my "Gotcha' Day". The day that I arrived off the plane from South Korea into BWI at around 11:45 pm at night. The flight was long and I was actually part of a group of seven or eight children that were being flown into the airport from Korea with my parents being one of the adoptive couples. I hear stories, and I see pictures - a picture of my tiny, frail premature body being carried off the plane by one of my mother's closest friends - another picture of an anonymous Korean woman standing at the edge of the airflight gate, looking on with tears in her eyes. I had later learned that this woman was one of the young Korean women who volunteer to be "baby escorts" or pseudo-mothers for at least the long journey over to America. This was my "birth", so to speak. This was my coming into my life as an Asian-American. As the person that I am now.

At the peak of my teen angst years, I looked at this day with disdain. In my eyes, I was brought here against my will, I had no say in the matter - and it especially hit me harder whenever my parents would say things like, "We didn't bring you here to screw up your life." or "We adopted you to save you. You wouldn't have survived at all in that orphanage."

Nowadays, it's just a day. A day to remember, of course, but just a day nonetheless. Without it, I probably wouldn't be here writing in this blog, in this chair, thinking about how my Spanish midterm is due by midnight tonight. With it, I have faced a lot of turmoil, identity confusion, frustration and hurt. But I wouldn't be me without all of those things.

So maybe, just maybe, I'll break out the vodka and orange juice tonight to celebrate. And more than likely, I might even throw on "Coming to America" to heighten the celebration festivities. =)

What Does My Birth Date Mean?

Really now, I am not all into these damned surveys about trying to figure out what this means and that means - unless I am at work with nothing to do (heh, heh, heh)...on my lunch break! (See how I recovered that?)

I was on Facebook reading my friend Eva's reviews on food when I saw that I had like fifty invitations to try this quiz to find out what my birth date means. Now for those of you with Facebook, you'll understand what I mean by fifty invitations. I really do mean fifty. Fifty-seven to be exact.

So I went on, and tried the application. It was pretty damn interesting and really on point. I have absolutely no idea how it works or how it generates the answers. All you do is plug in your birthdate and all this information pops up. Here's what it had to say:

Independent and free-willed, you tend to be the alpha dog in most situations. Its your confidence which pulls you through the difficult times and take you ultimately to the time. You are not born to carry out life's mundane tasks, you are meant for the bigger things in life. You are creative. Sometimes people dont understand you, but you take that in your stride.

Your greatest strength is: your ability to gain respect.

Your greatest weakness is: caring too much what others think.

Your lucky color is: orange-red.

I don't know about my greatest strength being able to gain respect. I think that's pretty subjective depending on who you talk to. But in terms of the About Me section it is pretty on point. I don't really like to carry out mundane tasks and I try to be creative. I know a lot people tend to not be able to understand me, but that is totally okay. I don't really take offense to it - unless they say something hurtful or disrespectful.

My FAVORITE colors are orange and green. That's pretty awesome that it is my lucky color. And as for the greatest weakness that is DEFINITELY on point, Jesus. Anyone who knows me knows that I think way too much about what other people think, particularly my family. Which is funny...I guess being able to not be understood and then worrying about what people think are quite an oxymoronic (is that a word? psh...it is now!) pair when you put them together. But then again, that's just me: one big ass oxymoron.

I am so behind...

I know, I know people... my birthday has gone and passed, and what's worse? Three people have blogged birthday wishes for me on my actual birthday... way before I even got to do the same thing!!

Blah, I will get to it eventually. 'Tis the season to keep your sanity cap on tightly, brave those massively packed mall corridors and purchase gifts for every Tom, Dick, Jane and Harry that you know (I know more guys than girls, what can I say?) and hurry your ass home so you can wrap them all up with nice paper and ribbon, etc., etc., etc...

It might sound like I am a bit "bah humbug-ish" but really, I do love this time of season sans the damn Christmas carols! I love going out and buying gifts for all my close friends and family, and wrapping them up, and then seeing the surprised faces and happy faces all over the place.

But this year is different. I am just not ready. At all. It's bad when John Basedow, Jr has totally and fully completed his X-mas shopping and I have still five or six people to buy for...that's bad. Why? Because I specifically remember several years being spent going out the day before X-mas to help him buy gifts for everyone. It was fun, but I was glad it was him that was behind and not me. And now, it's me. Revenge has reared its ugly, nasty head.

So I guess that's why this year's holidays hasn't been as pleasant as it should be for me. And it should be tons pleasant. Mainly because I can drive myself ANYWHERE and EVERYWHERE to go X-mas shopping. Which, might I add, I have been. I am loving it, and have grown to love driving more and more each day - except for parallel parking...that's not something I love at all.

Alas, though, I haven't forgotten to write about my birthday. I love all that were able to make it out to celebrate - it made my year to see all those happy faces. And a great big love to all those who couldn't, just 'cause you weren't there doesn't mean that I didn't feel your love in other ways this year. I have been completely blessed with everything that I have overcome this year - and all of the friendships that I have that have grown stronger, and new ones that I am excited are just beginning... and just all the wonderful growth that I feel that I have made for myself, personally - even though the times were tough and sometimes ugly - I feel that I have come out a better person, a more confident woman, and I am finally for the first time in my life loving almost everything about myself - and learning to accept the things about myself that I can't change and don't necessarily love all that much. And that's okay.

I promise, pictures, pictures people. I really promise. But hey, I am in a procrastinating mood recently. I just registered for class last night on my laptop in an oversized t-shirt that I got for free from the Irish Festival last year and my comfy brown robe with a cup of hot chocolate listening to the rain beat against my bedroom window... God, it felt so amazing to be lazy. But I knew I had to register soon or die. DIE, I tell you! I still have to go to school later on this week and argue the fact that my financial aid is not showing up on the system to cover my registration from being cancelled. Nothing ever works out like a piece of cherry pie for me... but that's what makes life so interesting with me.

I also promise, more thought provoking posts later on...I have been writing in my journal more and more, reunited my music roots back to John Mayer's "Any Given Thursday" and Radiohead's "Pablo Honey" and cried, and explored my inner workings... and have lots of mind-tittilating subjects that I have feasted my mind on to share with all of you.

***Quick Shout-out to Ms. PT & Jolee*** Thanks for "forcing" me out on Friday night, and "forcing" me to celebrate my belated birthday with you two, and "forcing" me to go to 1722 and talk with the meathead in the back lounge area so I could be your "guy friend" that night. Haha. Have fun in Taiwan, Ms. PT and Jolee, you know I am there for you no matter what.

Four Bucks and a 35 mph wind chill...

So this morning I ran out of the house and forgot to pack a lunch. And then got to work and realized I only had four bucks on me. Rather than spend four bucks on something substantial (and let's face it, who here knows where I could get something "substantial" for four bucks? - Didn't think so.) I decided to go to the 4th level where there are vending machines.

Ahh yes, vending machines that hold to key to unhealthy living. All the unwanted fat and calories I could possibly ask for in just one package of self-dubbed "Homemade Grandma Cookies" or in "Fiery Habenero" Doritos which by the way comes in a bag no bigger than the palm of my hand and holds about the portion size of a 6-month old. (Doritos are my secret enemy. I LOOOOVEEEE Doritos. I have three bags at home hidden in a secret place for that certain someone who likes to come over to my house and chastise me for eating so much junk food. Take that, John Basedow, Jr!! :-))

I just finished my feast of Peanut Butter cookies, Cheese crackers with peanut butter filling, and Salt & Vinegar chips (I know it sounds disgusting right now but it felt soooo gooooood going down). To balance out the equation, rather than buy my regular binge drinking can of Grape soda, I opted for the 20 oz. bottle of Aquafina. That's right. I went for the 20 oz. Boo yah!

The wind is ridiculous near my building. Most likely because of the water, and how close we are to it - therefore when the winds pick up - they really pick up. Therefore, in the mornings, I grab the warmest clothes I can find. And seeing as I haven't got too many sweaters/long-sleeved shirts on hand (don't ask me but once I moved into Dumb-dalk I couldn't find half my winter or fall clothing that I once had) I tend to grab summer clothes and layer like a crazy woman.

But apparently this isn't good enough for the "semi-business casual corporate" world that I am in. Whatever that "Semi-business casual corporate" nonsense is. I got called in and told that what I was wearing yesterday was too casual and crossing the line. Not in detail, just that - that it was too casual. But this morning, it came upon someone to tell me in detail why specifically my outfit was too casual yesterday. Apparently - the "flannel" material, mixed with the attached "hood" was too casual. Flannel? What if I am cold? I had a decent shirt underneath but I was freezing in this office.

I was also told that my brown cords were "pushing it" that I had on today. Since when are cordoroys "pushing it" with the code? Do they want me to freeze my ass off and get the chills?

It was suggested to me that maybe I should go back and revisit the employee handbook for the dress code... I suddenly feel like I am back in Catholic middle school.

Music I Love Driving To

I have found that through my driving travels - there are certain types of music that just fit while driving that I love. The kind of music that fits perfectly with just cruising along the roads, whether it be during the day or late at night.

So I have dedicated this blog post to me writing down all the songs that I have fallen in love with again while being in my Corolla.

1. All 80's love ballads. Jeeeesus Christ, as corny and as goober as half of these songs are, the most brilliant song writing occurred in the 80's. Point blank and simple. I mean, c'mon... Spandau Ballet? Boy Meets Girl? Anyone?

2. RENT The Musical Soundtrack (Disc 1 and 2) I don't care who you are or what you think - this music is fantastic and I could sing "Light My Candle" till I am blue in the face.

2.5. Okay, you know what? I take the above statement back and replace it with ALL musical soundtracks. I'm sure the guy at the traffic light on Route 40 thought I was strange singing "Defying Gravity" at the top of my lungs with the windows down.

3. Justin Timberlake's "Justified". Particularly "Take A Ride" track. I LOVE that track!

4. Shivaree "Half On A Baby" (THANK YOU GOOSE~!!!!) If you like R. Kelly, this will make you think twice when you hear how f&cking awesome this girl sounds covering his song.

5. Jurassic 5 "Feedback" album. (Thank you to my favorite "black kid", Jos)

6. Ernie Halter's "Congress Hotel" - I think of his song "Love, Look At Me Now" as my eternal scream out to the world. I love his acoustic sound - and it's a nice raw melody to help keep time while you're on the road.

7. Amos Lee - Anything by Amos Lee. My God, one of the most serene things to do is to be moving - whether it be by bus, by car, by train, and to listen to Amos Lee at high levels - what a peaceful place to be in. I would always nestle into a corner of the train from DC to MD and listen to my Amos Lee playlist on my iPod over and over and over and over again.

8. John Mayer - "Heavier Things" The entire album. Particularly "New Deep".

9. Radiohead - ANYTHING. Ahhh, totally puts me in that zone. Thinking deep, feeling the music, and just me and the road.

10. Okay, K-Pop...alright? I'll admit, I still have my old H.O.T. CD, and my old G.O.D. CD - and yes, okay, I still listen to Brown Eyes and BoA. But I am totally stuck in the 90's when it comes to Korean music. The last album I bought was 5tion's first debut album...yes, I'm that behind with the Korean times.

Waking up to Blogality

That's right...Blogging + reality = blogality.

This is my space to be truthful, and I have never been one to hide my inner-workings or idiosyncracies. I have never been one to tuck the problems underneath the rug and keep them hidden behind closed doors.

I have always been the one that trips constantly on the concrete sidewalk paths, and then takes pictures of the gashes and bruises to remind myself that I am vincible, and am living and in the flesh. I am the one who when she was sad, would write about it in my journal, in my poem...in my blog. No bars, no questions, no...restraints.

So I wonder when this sense of urgency hits - the urgency to censor one's self from being honest - brutally, completely honest and raw. What happened to my ability to lower my guard down and share my pain, my struggle, my gains, and my trophies with everyone? Is it age? Is it experience? Is it both?

I read some of these blogs that are linked on my friend's pages, and I am in awe of how beautifully raw each writer/blogger portrays him/herself. I almost forgot how amazing it feels when words can set you free.

I've forgotten how therapeutic this was. To sit and write, and just - crunch it out. Let that tip of my pen write all the composting waste it could possibly squeeze from my brain so that somewhere in there, the compost would turn to soil, and in turn, the soil would nurture something beautiful: a poem, a story, a prose piece...a sonnet, a sestina, a triolet.

I will start from now on then: to write how I feel and ...no restraints:

Sub-Blog Post (a.k.a. Blogette) best tasted if with a nice cup o' joe and some rich cream cheese.

It took me a matter of five minutes to go onto my health insurance's website to find the listing of local psychologists. It has taken two days, and counting to figure out which one to try next.

The first one I went to, she was a mess. I think she needed as much help as I did at the time, trying to figure herself out and all that. The first one I went to, my mom had found for me - through her therapist. Let me tell you that it can never and will never end good if your mother insists on picking out your therapist. One of life's little lessons learned.

I can't shake how many names were on there. I guess I should be grateful for good insurance that has a wide coverage - but at the same time, it's hard to pick from a list of names who you're going to feel safe enough to tell all your problems to, and who of those Ph D.s are going to understand you at least a little bit.

After a while I found myself just wanting to close my eyes, wiggle my finger around in the air and let it land on a name, any one of them, and say "Okay, you look like a nice doctor to expose my whole life story to, Mr. Apple....bottom?"

[shaking myself out of bad visual experience]

Okay. Should I take the time to say that I am not crazy? I had spent 2 hours in an impromptu session with my mother's psychologist for her to tell me what I already knew: you're not crazy, EJ, your parents are.

So why having to check myself into a psychologist now? Because I feel completely overwhelmed suddenly. With work, with school, with the direction that I want to go in...I have found myself in the last few months coming across those online surveys (you know those annoying things that your coworkers send you for lack of anything better to do, save for the piles of work on your desk that you'd much rather stare at) and coming to that question that goes something like "Where do you see yourself in the next ten years?".

Mind you, it's just an online survey...it's not God knocking on my door, nor is it my parents (although they ask the same question from time to time)...but I still freak out. It still grips me and I find myself sitting there wondering - "well, hell...where do I see myself in the next ten years?" Quite honestly, I have goals...I know where I want to be...but I am not sure if I have all that it takes to get there. I know that sounds terrible, admitting something like that. I never used to be that person. I used to be the sure-of-herself, go-out-and-get-'em kinda gal...and I think that the past three years' events (lots of drama and lots of truths coming from my family, yada, yada, yada) have all finally just hit me. As if the actual events happened in the past three years but my emotions are just now catching up.

Which is why, sans PMS, I can often find myself watching a comedy on TV and suddenly burst out into tears and go "why?!" to some event that specifically happened somewhere in someplace within the past three years. Is this making any sense? At any rate, I just feel better writing it out and I don't care at this point if it makes any sense here.

Perhaps what I am getting at is that the last three years have not all been bad, they have been filled with awesome, incredible and sweet memories for me. I have met some amazing people and have been blessed to have them in my life and I will always love those close to me...but I think when you're tested so much in such a short time you suddenly are faced with questions that you never had to answer before about your character, and about who you are. I guess I lost myself in the translation.

So what to do now? Continue flipping through this 15-paged booklet of names ...or try to work this out on my own? I know I am not the first person to feel this way...to "lose all sense of self", to "find my identity". Jeeesus, I'm a KAD for crying out loud.