Freshman Year. 

My freshman year of high school was breezy and easy, like the Washington skies. I was just growing out of the ridiculous haircut I had gotten in 8th grade, and nobody cared about all the drama that happened in middle school, anyway. I had a fresh start, and I intended to use it in this big new high school. 

I found my new best friend in drama class, which we both failed. She was warm and friendly like the summer, which was her name. We became inseparable, and I haven’t found a friend like her since. 

The majority of my freshman year revolved around one thing. He was tall and had green eyes. I’ll never forget the first time we held hands, also in drama class. We were watching 12 Summer Nights, by Shakespeare. I was playing with the ring on his finger that spun around in its metal case, and then I wasn’t. We were holding hands, and we did for the rest of the movie. At the end, the lights came on, and I didn’t know what to say. We just looked at each other. 

Hello, Green Eyes. I thought, and he raced off. 

Our first kiss was outside of his house. Although I didn’t have the best of eyesight, I could see his mom’s disapproving gaze from the living room window. But it happened anyway, and he ran off, just like before. 

See, he was dying of cancer. But one moment with him felt like forever, and that’s how I thought it would last. 

There were a lot of firsts with him. He was my first actual boyfriend, and my first real life lesson. He was also my first, and I was his first. We both skipped drama (the first class we ever skipped) to go to his house, and when we got back, everyone knew what we had done, and we pretended to be embarrassed. But we weren’t. 

It was also the first time I remember being truly happy, inside and out, or at least the first time since I had been a child. And we both sat in the class as the others teased us with grins on our faces, and when I looked at him, I was speechless.

Hello, Green Eyes. 

Sophomore Year. 

Sophomore year started out like my freshman year of high school, but ended very stormy, like the Colorado skies. My mom told me she “missed the mountains,” so it was goodbye Washington, and hello Colorado. Goodbye popularity, goodbye best friend, goodbye warm weather and happy feelings. 

Goodbye, Green Eyes.

I never really said goodbye to Green Eyes, not even online. I didn’t want to face the fact that it would hurt more to say goodbye than to pretend I had never left. Of course he found me and we talked, but I never told him out loud all that he meant to me. 

Growing up, everyone always told me to have no regrets. They never told me what to do when they started piling up. Nobody explained how to cope with guilt or how to get rid of the regrets. Not saying goodbye to that boy and telling him something, anything, still weighs on me today.

My family and I drove down to Colorado on a three-day trip on a crowded GreyHound bus, to a small trailer park on the very edge of a small town. My mom, her boyfriend, and my brother and sister, and I moved into a three-bedroom trailer with my mom’s friend and her son and daughter. You can imagine it was crowded. 

A few months after I started school, now poor and an outcast, I thought it couldn’t get any worse. Then I got a few messages from my friends back home telling me that he was dead. He died in his sleep. The cancer had won. At first I felt numb. All I could do was stare in the mirror, and think, goodbye, for real. 

Goodbye, green eyes. 

Junior Year. 

Junior year was a blur. The storm clouds in the sky paralleled the ever-present storm clouds in my mind. I didn’t go to class much. When I did, I was (please excuse my language) a frigid bitch to those around me. I had a few friends, but none of them went to the high school. I started to lash out at my mom and burn the bridges around me. 

I wouldn’t admit it, but all I wanted was my green eyes back. So there were plenty of blue eyes, and brown eyes, and blurry faces and one-night stands, and a lot of parties. I went to school less and less and started doing other things more and more. 

I snuck out all the time and ran away twice. I got into a fight with my mom’s boyfriend and he ended up in jail. That night, my mom told me I had to find somewhere else to stay. 

And I did, quickly. But my struggles were only beginning as I would have to learn how to balance school on top of my Couchsurfing lifestyle. 

As I walked through the cold one morning on my way to school, I caught my gaze in the reflection of a car window, and I stared glumly at my tired face.

I miss you, green eyes. 

Senior Year. 

Senior year was a silver lining on the horizon, like the morning I woke up after I had spent the night underneath the town bridge and gazed at the Colorado mountains with a new sense of determination. I was never going to have to do that again. I knew I deserved better, and I was the only person who was going to do something about it.

I switched schools to an alternative school called Horizons, and the principal of my old school agreed to reinstate my credits from Junior year as long as I passed all my classes in this new school. 

Although I still struggled with homelessness, drugs and alcohol, I found that life was easier in this new school. I was passing all my classes, and my future seemed hopeful. 

When I watched my sister graduate college from Fort Lewis, I had never felt so proud of anyone in my entire life. I wanted to feel that pride for myself, too.

My sister showed me her college diploma, and I showed her mine from high school. She hugged me. I looked at her straight in her eyes, which were normally a dark rich chocolate-brown. But at that moment, the sun shining through the clouds bounced off the vibrant sea of leaves to reflect that familiar sea-green hue I had not seen in a long time.

“I’m so proud of you,” she said, and smiled. 

“I’m proud of you, too,” I mumbled back, and smiled even bigger. 

I love you, Green Eyes. Thanks for everything. 

High school is a time of learning who you are, what you want to do, what you’re gonna be, and where you’re gonna go. One of the most important lessons I learned in those four years was that life can change in an instant. Life is resilient but can be fragile. Everyone always told me to have no regrets, but never told me what to do when you do find yourself carrying them around, like the heavy books in your school bag. What you can do is this: let your regrets change you. Let them teach you. Let them challenge you. Sometimes the only way to make things right is to do things differently, because you can’t change the past. Because time rolls by like the puffy clouds in the sky, and change is inevitable. So live a life that you are happy living, cherish and value people. Because eventually we all close our eyes. And man, I miss those green eyes. 

77%

dec 11
a journal on becoming

I meet who I am with who I was. I often find that most people cannot become more than they are because of their unwillingness to sacrifice who they were. who you were at some point is not who you want to stay. yet the version of you who you are now has so many things you can’t stand to lose. who will you be when you shed the layers? when you rid yourself of the friends, the places, the things you currently have in order to become anew?

what if you let go of everything only to fail? you fear failure to the point of hesitation. scarred to pull the trigger on your biggest dream because the worst that could happen is you fail. but what if failure isn’t the worst that could happen? what if the worst that could happen is that you die saying what if? you die a dreamer. a composition of untold stories and regrets.

there is an abundance of layers of who I am. as I believe we are multi-faceted creatures meant to explore all the parts of ourselves. beyond the usual, beyond the straight path. I found that our path narrows during the process of schooling and the entrance into adulthood, as if we get let out only to be one exact thing we chose for ourselves. as if all the other things are not worth the exploration. as if we ought to choose. as if we can only be one thing. like there is only room for one version of ourselves in this timeline. that’s so not true. the best version of me is the one where I am overly passionate about so many things. where I get to list all of the things I love and you can decide my individuality and commitment to fulfillment. that’s why I started saying “live passionately” in high school. we are meant to be full of life.

it all starts with our mind. are you one to push boundaries? set the bar higher? reach for more than what was presented? it’s too easy to accept exactly as we are gifted and make no effort towards anything greater and that is foolish. the mind doesn’t fit inside a box. neither does life. things will bend and break and change the bounds of the box. to be so rigid is to rob yourself of a passionate and fulfilling life.

say you are one to love the rigidity of life. structure, a set plan, path, curated for you. that way you can go through life with it laid out for you. maybe you grew up with a family business. everything was predetermined for you. and you like that. you like that you do exactly as you are told. you don’t need to put thought into anything and the ease of that makes life worth living for you. and good for you.

but there’s more.

on the other side of that is freedom. freedom to create, to fail, to be, to take up any space you want. we forget that we can be adults trying something for the first time. there is no age limit on youthfulness. the innocence of learning is commendable. there is a level of vulnerability that presents with learning something for the first time past the schooling age. deciding you want to learn how to swim at 24, for example. that’s me. I want to learn how to swim at 24 years old and though many may think there is embarrassment that should fall behind that, I believe there is no age limit to learning something new. who cares? who cares if it’s your first time picking up an instrument? your first time trying to learn a new language? nobody cares as much as you do.

the battle of adulthood and adolescence lives in my brain in a dauntingly beautiful conundrum. somedays I feel my youth peering in, begging to try new things and be a beginner again. while my ego loves to play and tell me I should be an expert as my age shall reflect my skill levels at any given task. that is so foolish, to care, to put unnecessary pressure on skill. to try your best is all you can do. show up as you, give it what you have, hold true to yourself.

who are we if we fail to embrace all versions of ourselves? if we don’t channel the past, present, and future all within the same moment than we are not the fullest, most complete version of self. I am me as I once was and as I will be. all of me has existed already, and I am the embodiment of my own totality. I trust in the self, as there is always a future version of me protecting who I currently am. and the coexistence of myself in time allows for the decisions I make to lead me to where I am meant to be. as there is no wrong decision. they all make sense in your path. the journey has no right or wrong answers, it just is as it is.

the process of becoming is a transition that begs for change. transition equals change. becoming requires change. allow things to change in your life. acknowledge the exit of people, places and things. allow the entrance of things that better align on your path. as your trust will expedite your higher version of yourself. and the acceptance of the adjustment period will excel you in your growth. be okay with loss. as the only way we gain is by losing something in its place. I believe life works in ways of replacement. there is always something to replace what once was. someone to replace who once was. if you look at life in replacements, you realize you’re never really losing anything. just finding better fitting pieces.

I am, I was, I will be. all simultaneously.

sacrificing aspects of our life typically comes across as giving up something. to let go. and while that is true, it does not have to be a negative. we let go to allow. we release so that we can hold better. this year I have chosen the path of sacrifice. I stopped doing a lot of things I used to do, I let go of a lot of things and people I used to love. I’m chasing the higher version of me that exists separate of those things, and I allow the entrance of better things that will enhance my life as those things did not. if that means ridding my life of everything except myself, then so be it. as I trust in the version of myself in the future to protect my current path. as she has what I currently desire. and those exist mutually. the strongest, most fulfilled people have found a way to accept sacrifice and have reframed the way they view it. viewing it as a tool, necessary to move forward along their path. as I feel lighter, less weight on my back, with less distraction. and I will meet the version of me I wish to be with the one that is ready for her. sacrifice is preparation.

I have allowed myself to live fearlessly as I have granted myself protection by releasing a fear of failure. to fully grasp the idea that failure is not real is to give yourself the freedom to be. to be all of you, all the versions you can think up. to try all of it. to be okay with setbacks, confusion, sacrifice. as all are tools to becoming.

become as you are, as you will be, who you are destined to be. don’t fight the urges, the gut feelings, the knowing of who you are to be. you already know, you have to acknowledge yourself. the time will pass anyways. my life has forever changed the first time I heard that. you already know who you are to be, you can feel it in your soul. who you are meant to be will seep out of your pores, it will be begging for your acknowledgement, begging for your pursuit. the pursuit of self is life’s greatest gift to ourselves. as we pursue ourselves, life is filled with passion.

When will you stop standing in your own way, Anita? Look at yourself—truly look. Stand here in the mirror and face the truth. No more excuses. No more hiding behind grief or the weight of all you’ve carried. Yes, it’s heavy, but you’ve held on to it because it felt easier than letting go.

Grief has been your crutch. You’ve let it stop you from moving, healing, and showing up for yourself. And love? You’ve given yourself to men who could never fully love you back—men who were emotionally unavailable, broken in ways you thought you could fix. Forgive yourself for that. Forgive yourself for loving them when they couldn’t love you in return.

Forgive yourself for not being the mother you thought you could be, for all the ways you feel you fell short. You did the best you could with what you had. And forgive yourself for what happened to you in school, for what happened when you were young. You were a child—innocent, unknowing. You didn’t deserve that, and it wasn’t your fault.

Forgive yourself for being there for everyone else—for pouring love, time, and energy into people who refused to pour back into you. Forgive yourself for letting other people’s insecurities make it hard for you to love yourself.

And Anita, forgive yourself for not understanding the favor God has always had over your life. Your grandmother told your mother you were blessed. She saw it in you before you could see it in yourself. Forgive yourself for letting people who had no intention of helping you step into your purpose stop you.

The weight you carry is not just the pain others caused—it’s the pain you’ve held onto within yourself. But now you see it. Now you know. Everything you’ve ever wanted is already yours, waiting on the other side of that door. But to walk through it, you must close every old door—the doors of shame, guilt, self-doubt, and fear.

See yourself as God sees you. See yourself as your grandmother saw you—blessed, strong, and purposeful. Forgive yourself, Anita. For everything. For all the times you didn’t choose you. For all the moments you dimmed your light.

You’ve carried this weight long enough. It’s time to let it go. Give yourself the love, the grace, and the second chance you’ve given to everyone else.

This pain, this truth—it’s yours. But so is the power to rise from it. So, Anita, look at yourself one last time. Will you stay in this mirror, or will you step forward into the life God has been holding for you all along?

The choice is yours.

“I dream of meeting different planets, ones that are too far away. but here I sit on my own axis patiently drifting in place/
We were never really alone, Just always too far apart we were one massive entity, there was no light in the dark/
I was unaware of myself and all the things I could do, see we all acted as one till we decided; Till we decided to move.
One of us would argue that we move too slow as a whole, splitting up into different groups will help in reaching our goals/
Another would explode in protest steady billowing smoke ‘That we stand alone in this emptiness of life without hope, we’re the only life around isn’t painfully clear. We’ve drifted forever and we don’t even know how we got here.’
First we were quiet, then a murmur, then all talking at once, temperatures started flaring and that’s something that nobody want’s. Tectonic plates collided mountains soon collapsed on themselves, the ones in frozen animation; Suddenly started to melt.
This precedence was paramount, Mutiny hardly began, until a quake violently erupted from our forces within. SILENCE! Yelled from our core, whats all this friction about? I look this way and that and everywhere’s ostensibly LOUD.
Great is my torment while i’m dormant in the center of fools, you were positioned for a purpose, so who told you to move? He wont be happy about this and everybody said who? In response the lava from our core top sided and blew. Our ranks grew in confusion as it cover our mass the lava filed every nook cranny and crevice we had.
For once our crust grew as hot as our center there was a flash and then BANG!!! and that’s all I remember. We were racing solitaire to an existence unknown we picked a star to give us light and started calling it home.
Some of us are solar systems in a galaxy plot our populations universal although our gravity’s not, me and my neighbors congregate but not as much as my friend, he boasts no atmosphere; That hides all our secretions within.
I boast vast hues of green, blue, onyx and white my one half unveils my star shedding its onerous light, my other half unveils my friend who supervises my dark and he always has my back because he’s never too far.
I keep a cool head and unbearably cold are my feet, my climates always changing while my seasons boldly repeat.
My inhabitants tend to extract all the grease from my joints, for what purpose I’ll never know so I begin to annoy!!!
Their shaving chunks out of my mane, their burning holes in my shield and they will not be satisfied until their homeless for real, reluctantly I cover for them maybe they’ll cease and abort, how can i sustain the life if they keep cutting it short?
How can my seasons remain in harmony if my climates a mess? These parasites will have me killed before the time of my death. It’s like they don’t even care like they’re devoid of remorse, lavishing Lament while preparing for their frivolous wars, savagely tainted are the minds of this belligerent bunch and they wonder why I produce natural disaster so much.
My star is castrating their old, disease is striking their kids, they cry to God but it’s just mother nature scratching an itch. I cry the same because he literally has the world in his hands, but if I do not adjudicate i’ll die the way i began.
I’ll have no atmosphere to boast, i’ll have no seasons to change, i’ll purge myself of all life till only insects remain. My star will confiscate my seas, oceans, rivers and lakes; Bet they’ll appreciate me then-Life isn’t given to TAKE.
So when your winters are getting colder and your seasons are hot just remember that you decide whether enough is enough, the choice is yours Because my end will be a gift to your curse.
You get many chances in life, but only-
ONE MOTHER EARTH