Twenty~Five

We made it to Vegas yesterday at around noon and I've loved every moment since. The veteran's village we're staying in is modest, to say the least, but beats living on cots by a landslide. We have beds and doors that lock and laundry in our building. Jasmine, Keeley and I are sharing a room with two beds, that we spent most of the day yesterday decorating/unpacking/making feel like a home.  Being able to actually unpack all my things without fear of having to move in a day is a wonderful feeling. I don't have to live out of my red bag anymore, I can actually settle in somewhere and make it comfortable, and this small sense of stability brings me great comfort. Jasmine covered our fridge in pictures of our adventures and we filled our shelves with books. There was a minor setback later on in the day, when I rolled around on the floor and stretched for a while and got bitten by bed bugs... but this issue was semi-addressed.... As in Rohan and I killed the ones we saw on t...

I'e  been experiencing a weird wave of anxiety/depression since I've gotten back to campus. My toxic thoughts have been off the charts and I've just been trying to stay afloat and keep them at bay to get through the day. They warned us that coming back from disaster relief could send us into this state and that it could take a while to adjust to it. I always thought myself to be somewhat resilient towards changing circumstances. I always think my "positive" mood is infallible. That is, until I start to feel bad, then I can barely stand it and my entire sense of self gets thrown off. Currently, there are things and people on my mind that I can't let go of, that I have to let go of, there's a present moment to pay attention to that I haven't been paying enough attention to. I'm learning there are always more things to learn about myself. The most important thing is that I must be patient. This morning I feel very good. Like I'm starting to retu...

A new year is upon us. As you may know, I'm nearly incapable of handling the passage of time, though I have to. So another year is gone and I'll keep it locked in my heart. 2017 was one of the best years I've yet to have. I am at a loss of words at the sheer beauty it brought me. And the knowledge, and the pain. I screwed up more times than I can count this year, I really did. It seems there were millions of times I was telling myself I would learn from my mistakes, then I went and made them again. I had to apologize to others a few more times than I would have liked to. But I guess the point of life is to make mistakes, and through them I have learned about forgiveness and how incredible of a thing it is. I could dwell on the mistakes, as I have a thousand times, but what's done is done and we're all human. At the end of the day maybe it's not about our mistakes but rather our triumphs. 2017 was a year of tiny triumphs. 2017 started out with a terrible hair...

I wrote this post a while ago when I was hit with a wave of anger and resentment towards you. I didn't post it, because I wanted to let go and forgive and move on. Then I went over to your house on Christmas yesterday and we screamed at each other and Patrick had to pull me away before I broke something. I finally told you what I felt in my heart without holding back, even if you were incapable of listening. I stood up to you and was fearless and strong and realized you don't control me anymore.You showed up to mom's house today with letters to each of us, about how we failed you as children, your idea of direct communication. Ice cold. All I have gotten from you is coldness and I've learned to mistake that for love. I refuse to make this mistake any longer, from anyone.  It would be easy to just blame everything on you. To blame you for Patrick going through what he's going through, to blame you for why I feel undeserving of love, to blame you for mom constantly ...

We made it back to Sacramento and it's a surreal experience being back here. It feels like a stranger I've seen before in dreams, familiar but foreign. I had no idea what was ahead of me when I left McLellan Park in early November. Seems as if a lifetime has gone by in a short month and a half. When we got back yesterday and were unpacking our things from the van, Jon, who barely says a word, goes "I feel different. When we left Sacramento, I liked you guys. Now, I love you." Ms. Oian, the unit leader for the green teams, mentioned today during our celebration/project debrief the importance of journaling, so we can remember the little things that are so easy to forget and reflect on what we've learned. I've learned so much I don't know where to begin. There's so much I never want to forget. It's a day later now. I completed this entry earlier today, and it all somehow got deleted. I was upset about this because I worked hard on the entry and re...

JOSHUA TREE. JOSHUA FUCKING TREE CAPTURED MY HEART AND SOUL YESTERDAY. We left Phoenix, Arizona at around 6 and I watched a beautiful sunrise from the van window and felt lucky to be alive. There is such a lot of world to see and I'm out here seeing it. Man oh man. Anyway, we drove all morning and ended up at Joshua tree at around noon. We stopped at the visitor center. I decided to trail off behind it and walk a bit, into the desert, until I had the sense I was alone with my surroundings. It was a level of quiet I have never experienced in a natural environment. I heard absolutely nothing and was in the middle of this tremendously infinite landscape. There is an entire world within Joshua Tree and it is silent, the entire ecosystem is perfectly intertwined and complex yet appears still and unwavering. This stillness was an inexplicably emotional experience for me. I could have stood there forever, and maybe would have until Ian tapped my shoulder and reminded me I shouldn't wa...

12.19 It's already day six of our trip back to Sacramento. I've been meaning to write, but my head hasn't been totally in the game for the past week. I've been groggy and my head hurts and everything feels tired. I'm not sure if it's possible, but Rohan has mono and I'm a little bit afraid I have it again for the third time. Then again, maybe I'm just paranoid and hit my head too hard on the bunk bed the other day. Who's to say. Anyway, I'm getting back to my normal self slowly and it feels good. So far, we've stayed in Mobile AL, Vicksburg MS, Abilene TX, El Paso TX, and Phoenix AZ. I've memorized the breakfast selection of the Holiday Inn chain and have made a hobby out of comparing the biscuit deliciousness at each location. Sleeping on beds again has exceeded all of my wildest dreams, who would've thought something so simple would bring me tremendous peace and comfort. I became so used to sleeping on tiny cots I forgot how nice...