Songs of Love

So my man Eben and I have quite the relationship! Below are the songs that, together, comprise the love we share and will always share! Laugh and enjoy!

So we didn't have an instant connection but we'd both had those high school heartaches. Even though I had the hots for his roommates, we still asked the same question out of life: "Where Do Broken Hearts Go?"

Then I started dating his roomate, Josh, while Eben worshipped me from afar and I knew that he wished that he had "Josh's Girl." After the big, bad break-up with the roommate I was a little hesitant, but he wooed me and convinced me, "Love lifts us up where we belong."

We had to break the friendship zone because he'd been "My Best Friend," for so long! So we started dating and at first we hid it from people, but eventually everyone could tell that we were in love. It just kind of happened. We didn't know what to expect but all of the sudden we were "Accidentally in Love," and it was a happy accident.

Then of course, we have to have some drama, because that's what life is all about. The best songs to sum this up would have to be a kind of montage of...me having "issues," some "Trust" stuff, and not being able to just be "us." We pulled it together but when hard times hit months and months later we tried to be apart and date other people, which was weird. But at the same time we always kind of ended up back together in one way or another.

Eben hated the guy I was dating, I know he thought, "Is she really going out with him?" Although, I didn't want anyone else getting their hands on him either. He was mine!
So eventually we gave up and gave in and got it back together for real.

On our second Valentine's Day we found our official song, "I Will Follow You Into The Dark." We were inseparable and we even ended up moving in together. That was quite the adjustment but like everything else in this life, we made it work.

I got the opportunity to study abroad. It was tough for me, but it was an opportunity I had to take. I had to suck it up even though I wanted to cry! I knew he hated that I was "So Far Away."

When I came back it was like I'd never been away. We talked all the time when I was gone and picked up right where we left off. We saw the Silver Lining in it all. It wasn't all happyness, champagne and roses though. We still had a lot of drama all around us and I was a mess after being gone. I missed my friends so much.

Things kept on swinging, and life kept on happening. Through it all, we stuck together. When my grandma died, he was there for me. I was the The Luckiest. I still am! When my mom was sick, he was supportive and patient. When life, kicked my ass, he was always there to help me back up. He's definitely a Well-respected man. It became pretty clear, despite any bad times, the fights and the drama that My Life Would Suck Without him.

We lost some great people in the midst of putting ourselves back together, but we all had the Time of Our Life and as sad as it is to say it was Good Riddance. So on St. Patrick's Day in 2009, after nearly 5 years of being together through it all, Eben asked and I said yes! I knew that He and I would be amazing together forever.

We still have times where we drive each other crazy but overall, I think we love each other Faithfully, we keep the Lovin, Touchin and Squeezing, live life Anyway we Want It, and won't Stop Believing in each other and the love we have!

We Live, We Learn, We Create, We Burn

Between waiting for the end of the world, working and being an active participant on the planet, it’s no wonder we often view this life as being a treacherous task. When I was growing up we never talked about the bad things. When life pulled a swift one on you, you would suck it up and swallow that bitter pill with the last drop of water you had. But I always had writing. I always had a journal, a diary or a piece of paper to write down my letters of life.

I have learned a lot in my twenty six years in the universe and I learn more every day but it never ceases to amaze me when the same old dramatic situations rear their ugly heads. When you grow up as a regular, suburban, middle-class family and come home one day when you’re twelve to a completely shattered existence, you grow up and you wake up pretty damn fast. Amidst broken promises and continuous lies, you create your own little world safe from all the wrongs and injustice. You escape by watching movies, and listening to endless hours of music. In my case, you also escaped by writing. You can take away every pain in the world if you write it out.

I’ll admit, on the outside I look completely normal and mostly put together, but there is a darkness inside this vertically challenged figure. I am an angry person. I’ve cried myself to sleep many times fearing that I would grow to be hateful, just like the hateful one who created me. Now I’ve checked and swallowed my anger so many times, so when it escapes, it tears things apart, but as a wonderful lyric by Frou Frou once expressed, “There’s beauty in the breakdown.”

Maybe I should provide some history. Since I was about 13, I’ve become a guarded, jaded, and suspicious being. I’m extremely selective on whom I let in. Every time I’ve let people see my darkness, it has always bitten me on the ass. So I’ve learned that some people can understand the fact that they just can’t understand, and other judge you for believing that fact, seeing you as holding your own life above all other matters of the world. True, darkened people like myself, are often selfish, but some of us are in fact selfless.

I could sit here and tell you my life story. I could tell you the great moments and the horrors, but would that make you accept me? Maybe it would. But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it until I die, with me you must understand that there are many things that you just cannot understand. Just like I have no real idea how my two best friends feel, having lost their mothers in their teenage years to tragic circumstance, you all have no idea how I feel having gone through what I have gone though.

What have I gone through? Here’s a taste: absentee parent at age 12, tried to repair the relationship at 15 and moved away from my entire world and the only real parent I’ve ever had. My first boyfriend when I was 16 was four years older than me. The first guy that cared about me had a girlfriend and I helped him cheat on her. I was physically dragged away from my new world into another one 3,000 miles away from everything. I almost didn’t graduate high school. My senior prom date dumped me a month before prom to take a freshman after he’d picked out my dress with me. My boyfriend at 18 was pill-junkie, unbeknownst to me, and he raised his hand to me once and almost hit me, stole $1200 from me, almost stole my car, cheated on me and lied to me throughout our entire relationship. An old family friend preyed on my vulnerability and destroyed my self-esteem to the point where throughout our relationship I was a cutter, hurt the only man that ever truly loved me, lost and gained over twenty pounds and completely lost touch with myself. I stopped my life to take care of a family member thought to have cancer only to later find out she’d lied, stolen and lost everything she had. I single-handedly cleaned up the mess, with no appreciation and in the middle of it all; a life-long friend was lost to drama and bullshit. I destroyed and repaired the 7 year relationship I’ve ha d with my husband to the point where he is just about all I have to depend on in this world.
I have some amazing friends who have fallen in love with my flaws and celebrate them with me. I’ve been through some crazy shit. I could write a novel. But really, in the end, I want to know why people seem to be surprised when I’m callous, abrasive and fly my freak flag? I realize I have a kind of clean image but I was raised to keep up a certain appearance and make nice. That doesn’t mean I can’t turn on something completely different.

This world has kicked my ass time and time again and I’m still standing. However, I still manager to get beat up by anyone I let in. There have only been a handful of people in my life who’ve seen the darkness and jump in there with me. Those are the people who hide the darkness within themselves too. I’m into that whole dark and light thing. I learned it in art, its call chiaroscuro, the distribution of light and shade in a picture. What’s my favorite painting? Van Gogh’s Starry, Starry Night is my favorite and talk about the difference between light and dark! MAN! I embody the distribution of shade and light within my personality.

I can be sweet as pie but don’t cross me. I’m a hard one to understand. Recently my husband was brought to tears explaining that with what I’d been through, he will stay with me through the rest and he knows how I’ve struggled and he refuses to watch anyone hurt me anymore. There are people in my life who love and accept me as the mess that I am. I own my fucked-up-ness and wear it with pride!

People find me fake and two-faced because they catch my “shade” when my light has dimmed. I was raised to be polite and cordial to everyone. I was raised to “get along,” with everyone, even if I don’t like or agree with them. It always carried me through. Don’t get me wrong, like the rest of the world, I can talk some shit. I can talk myself into a frenzy, but I can also talk myself out of one…or write it!

In the moments where the world slaps me in the face and I’m perplexed and upset, I write it out. In the new age, that’s what blogs are for. Sometimes when people read my blog they are touched. They see the darkness and they appreciate my point of view. I often write from a negative arena, but there are some pieces that are balanced and lighter.

I’ve lived and learned. I will still create. I will burn and bury the things that have brought me distress. I think Death Cab For Cutie’s lyrics can put it quite succinctly:
“Will I have learned so very little, when these bones are old and brittle?I wait to talk when I should listen and cloud mistakes with false revisions…and I can feel them pulling away as I'm resigned to stay the same. And you can't even begin to know, how many times I've told myself, ‘I told you so.’ And you can't even begin to believe, there’s so many bridges engulfed in flames behind me…”

I write about the burned bridges but I will admit that the dark side of this redhead thought the flames of those burning bridges to be gorgeous in the destruction. I refuse to live in regret. Sometimes I wish that the scenes had played out differently but I wouldn’t take away any of my dark times and bad days because what doesn’t kill you only makes you more badass.

One of my favorite comedians, Dane Cook, talks about how there are two kinds of connections in this world: when you are with someone and you are having a great time it’s a “good relationship,” but when everything goes wrong and it’s a bad situation it’s called a “relation-shit.” It’s quite brilliant, really and I fully agree with the idea. When you’re in the middle of something great, be it a friendship, a job, a city, whatever, you are so in love. It’s always light, fluffy and sweet. When things get tough, it can get ugly real fast and when that love fades, you’re left with a relation-shit. We’ve all had them. They come and they go. I don’t regret them, I’ve learned from them both, they’d gotten me through a lot but don’t be upset with me because I see “the break-up” or the “breakdown,” as a beautiful disaster while you may see it in a completely different light.

I laugh and poke fun of a lot in this life to battle the inner darkness. In the film “Anger Management,” Jack Nicolson’s character calls sarcasm, anger’s ugly cousin or something like that and he’s right on. My frustration often comes out in sarcastic spurts, but my grandmother always said, if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. I guess I thought a little spice makes everything nice…see there it was again!

What can I say? I’m simply a complicated girl; even that statement was a total oxymoron! People hold these expectations upon me and become disappointed when I don’t live up to them but I see at as, if I’m disappointing I’m still getting your attention, right? I can’t say if I see the glass half empty or the glass half full because if I don’t have a full cocktail in front of me, who cares anyway! HA! I don’t like making enemies out of people but if I let you in and you use my darkness against me, I guess we can’t get along after all. I’m not afraid of controversy. I am a controversial being, but it annoys me when perceptions and feelings get rolled into a cluster-fuck.

I’m an expert on the whole feelings versus perceptions thing, people. No joke. I’ve been arguing both sides for years. You feel what you feel, that if a person’s right, but if you perceive a situation to be one way, and I see it the opposite, that’s no one’s fault and you can’t really argue it. Take it for what it is! And yet it’s a constant struggle!

Recently I’d felt personally violated, like I couldn’t think my thoughts, feel my feelings, and write down my story. I’d lashed out, I’d felt upset and then I swallowed my pride and just faced that music. Music is a big part of my life, so I’ll always face it head on, even if they are playing my most hated song. I’d had an awakening though. Whatever happened to sticks and stones can hurt my bones but words can never hurt? I’d been called a lot of terrible things throughout the years and I always managed to stand back up. I’d also seen, first hand, that cordial attitude of getting along, the very thing I’d been chastised for, given right back to me, like a reflex. It’s in our nature.

I’ve created a world for me where I’m comfortable. I’ve selected some amazing people to keep around me. I’ve lived. I’ve learned. I’ve created some questionable objects and situations. I’ve burned things, people and many bridges. I’ve seen the light, I’ve seen the dark. I won’t apologize for being me. If you get hurt on my personal journey of living, learning, creating, and burning, damn straight I owe you an apology, but I won’t stop being me for anyone. If my husband, my family and my closest friends can accept me as the great mess that I am, you should just be able to accept that you don’t “get me.” I’m still meeting great new people every day and finding friends in different places. I may not have been what or who you wanted me to be, but if I’m happy being me, that’s the end of the discussion.

For now, I’ll continue my living, learning, creating and burning, until I’ve lived my last day, learned my last lesson, created my last great achievement and burned everything left in my wake!

Redacted

My last post was redacted due to conflict of interest and potentially hazardous material.

The Music In Me

Music is everything to me. I’m not really a musician but I definitely couldn’t live without music. I have a very eclectic taste and it’s even somewhat random. I can remember some of the most pivotal moments in my life surrounding music. It truly is the soundtrack of your life.
My favorite two bands in my toddler years were The Talking Heads and The Monkees; random, right? I used to go crazy in my “Johnny Jumper” listening to them. We had a vinyl player and I loved all those albums.

Throughout grade school I auditioned for solos in the choir. I went to Catholic school so if you’re not in sports, you sing. Even if all the songs were religious, it was better than no singing at all. In fourth grade I won the talent show for singing “Castle on a Cloud” from Les Miserables. My mom took me to Goodwill to get a nasty old nightgown and I sang to an old stuffed animal. It was my shining moment. I got lots of solos here and there and truly loved singing. I took voice lessons and sang my little heart out.

My best friend and I fell in love with “Grease” early on because her mom was in love with John Travolta. I loved musicals, especially, “The Sound of Music.” When I was about 11, mass hysteria hit when I discovered the band that my best friend and I still obsess about to this day: Hanson. Some may be ashamed but we love Hanson and always will. I had posters all over my wall and to this day I still know all the songs by heart.

Although a friend took me to see Billy Joel with her family at a small event at a local University, Hanson was my first official concert at a big ass arena. I even got a band shirt! My obsession with boy bands, radio hits and the Pop that made the 90’s epic was also mixed with my father’s tastes. He helped me fall in love with Dire Straits, The Pointer Sisters, Simon & Garfunkel, Crash Test Dummies and Vonda Shepherd. Those loves are still alive today.

I fell in with all the music fads here and there but then I noticed that I’d started discovering more music just by attempting to share a common interest with others. I tended to listen to the music my crushes liked and ended up liking most of it. The Cranberries, NSYNC, Letters to Cleo, The Queers, Rufio, The Used, Anti-Flag, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, Bright Eyes, Ja Rule, The White Stripes and NOFX were all bands I’d adopted in order to have a conversation piece with a guy.

I’d discovered that music heals anything. A day, a moment, a second can be so much better with the right song. You can laugh, cry, sing, and become completely happy with the right song to fit your mood. Friendships, some lost and some still strong, also provided a soundtrack for my life. My iPod is like a shrine to my musical idols. Concerts are epic events for me. Music is just in everything for me, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

You know those scenes in movies or TV shows that are totally made by the music? I’ve had those moments in my life. I’ve also had those days where I listen to the same song over and over again because it captures exactly how I’m feeling.

I remember when my mom left, my dad bought me Fastball’s debut album because I was obsessed with that song “The Way.” I fell in love with a song called “The Good Old Days.” I must have listened to that song a million times singing to myself “I been thinking about the good old days, decorated in a candy glaze…each photo on the mantle, sweet memories that never will go stale.” I remember long drives with my dad listening to Dire Straits, “Heavy Fuel,” and “Calling Elvis.” I also remember all the words to the Crash Test Dummies album “God Shuffled His Feet.” My dad had a knack for picking out albums with amazing stories, which totally plays into my tastes even now.

After I watched the movie, “Almost Famous,” I became obsessed with 70’s music. My dad had most of these gems on vinyl. Zeppelin was my favorite music to listen to at the end of the day in a nice warm bath. I listened to those songs during breakups too. When my first official boyfriend and I would fight I’d blast The Used, “Buried Myself Alive.” I fell in love with punk rock and all its sub-classes when I was 19. I still listen to it when I get upset. Those lyrics “You almost always pick the best time to drop the worst line, you almost made me cry again this time, another false alarm, with the flashing lights, well this time I’m not going to watch myself die…I buried myself alive on the inside, so I could shut you out, and let you go away for a long time…I guess it’s better you trapped yourself in your own way, and if you want me back, you’re going to have to ask, nicer than that!”

I’ve had those movie scene music moments too. This one I will never forget; my friend Danielle and I were going on one of our afternoon drives in my car and we were seriously rocking some Elton John on a summer day. We had the windows down and were blasting “Tiny Dancer,” when we hit a stop light and some local hippies sunning on the line look over and see us singing and join in: “Hold me closer, Tiny Dancer, count the headlights on the highway!” It was amazing.

My husband and I always hit the karaoke scene as soon as we turned 21. We first sang “Jackson” by Johnny Cash and June Carter. He became somewhat famous for his rendition of Gin and Juice and I rocked Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” more than a few times. Journey is my all time favorite 80’s band. I’ve decided that Journey is the best thing that came from the 80’s besides me and I once serenaded my husband with “Faithfully,” to show some love.

I hit the Indie scene hard right after my punk phase and it’s still a heavy obsession. My friend turned me onto Jenny Lewis, Postal Service, The Faint and Death Cab for Cutie. Jenny Lewis is the lead singer of Rilo Kiley and has a million side projects. She is my idol. She’s a redhead with a wicked voice and I would marry her if I could. Another friend got me hooked on the Decemberists, whom I also passed over to my husband. We’ve seen Death Cab and the Decemberists more than a handful of times and would pay to see them again and again and again. These artists are epic storytellers.

They have written songs that have spoken to my very heart and soul. Somehow I always manage to hear them when I need it most and the perfect song always plays to fit my mood. When my ex-boyfriend just disappeared and dumped me, he wrote an apology letter to everyone, BUT ME. I listened to Death Cab for Cutie’s album Plans a million times and played myself “Someday You Will Be Loved,” over and over, pretending he meant to say goodbye and apologize. I heard them singing the story from him, about me: “I once knew a girl in the years of my youth, with eyes like the summer, all beauty and truth, but in the morning I fled, left a note and it read ‘Someday you will be loved.’”On that very same album my future husband and I found “our song.” Some think it to be somewhat sad and slightly morbid but we find it to be raw, real and true. Our first dance was to “I Will Follow You Into The Dark,” which still makes me cry:
“Love of mine, someday you will die, but I’ll be close behind, I’ll follow you into the dark. No blinding light, or tunnels to gates of white, just our hands clasped so tight, waiting for the hint of a spark. If heaven and hell decide, that they both are satisfied, illuminate the “No’s” on their vacancy signs, if there’s no one beside you when your soul embarks, then I’ll follow you into the dark.”

After I saw the film, Garden State, I completely agreed with Natalie Portman’s character, Sam, when said that the Shins would change your life. I became completely obsessed with the song “New Slang.” It became a theme song of sorts and I still feel like it tells the story of my life and it has one of the most poetic lines ever written in it: “I’m looking in on the good life I might be doomed never to find.”

I could quote music all day. When I worked at this Mexican Grille it was an iPod playlist shuffling all day and, not only were most of the songs Spanish, but the only songs I could stand over and over were either Jack Johnson or Jason Mraz’s hit “I’m Yours,” because it reminds me of a first dance with a very important friend of mine.

Music has always made me feel better. I will never get sick of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing.” Whenever I’m down, that song always makes me happy. It’s so true that certain music fits certain moods. I do love crappy Pop music because it’s catchy. I download Billboard’s annoying hits all the time. Even though I truly believe that music has moved in a direction that scares me, and that there are a lot of mainstream, commercial bands out there that are completely talentless and annoying, I still manage to find artists who can reach out to me.

Recently I stumbled upon Florence and the Machine and she is an amazing artist. Some of the bands that I saw years ago that I wasn’t crazy about have grown on me because of a certain song. Other musicians have come to me through movies and television shows or other friends and acquaintances. There is always a song in my head and always a song in my heart. Most of the time they don’t even match!

Everyone has different tastes for music. I used to have fights with an old friend because he would make me listen to bands I just couldn’t connect with but would never give my music a chance.
What is one person’s trash is another’s treasure. Personally, I’m convinced that Fallout Boy and Panic at the Disco are the same terrible band, but kids love them and they’ve obviously touched a lot of people because they have a huge fan base. I’m not one to talk, I love Hanson, who most people cannot stand.

That’s yet another amazing thing about music, there is so much of it out there, there’s always something for someone. Although the future of music scares me because technology has given the upper hand to the lesser talented, there are still stars to be made and epic musicians being born every day. We may have Britney Spears and Creed still in our midst, but we also have Lady Gaga and Mumford and Sons around to keep things interesting.

Just remember that music truly is the soundtrack of your life, so what’s on your playlist?

The "Big" Scenario

Who hasn’t seen Tom Hank’s classic film and portrayal of Josh in “Big?” If you haven’t seen this movie, then we can’t even be friends. It’s a personal favorite and still makes me laugh and cry.
Have you ever had that moment where you wake up and you’re not the same as you were the day before? Or let me ask this, did you just wake up one day and be grown up? It’s terrifying!

Granted, I didn’t go to bed thirteen and wake up 26 but still. I think I’m officially a grown up. Don’t know how I got there. I was a late bloomer for sure, in every sense of the word. My mom let me have sports bras because all the other 12 year olds were getting boobs and mine weren’t even noticeable. I played with my American Girl dolls until I was 14. I loved dressing them for holidays. My first date and my first boyfriend weren’t until I was 16. The all the sudden I became the adult in many situations and fully took responsibility for all of my choices, no matter how stupid, but I was and probably still am, a total kid at heart.

I’ve been a nanny for 14 years of my life because of this. Being child-like is so much better. I still get giddy at Universal Studios and Disney World and I still have “toys.” My favorite stuffed animal is still in my bed. I love making crafts and coloring in coloring books. I got married and learned what love actually was at 24 after living with him first. I waited until I was 21 to get a credit card. I had a serious savings account at 22 and I’m still not quite ready for babies. Hell, we just committed to a dog! We pay rent, we’ve never bought a new car and we don’t buy ridiculous things. We have credit card debt but it’s under $5,000 so I think we’re okay.

But yesterday, the grown up-ness happened. Today I woke up and I had the “Big” scenario. I’d just spoken to my best friend the other night about how we’ve made these conscious choices and then we kind of become victims of our circumstance. I told her that we choose this one path and end up wandering on it then think, “How did I get here?” It’s like those late night drives where you can’t really remember how you got home.

My husband has been seriously wrestling with job things. He toyed with the idea of school but it just costs too much and in his words, he didn’t “bust his ass,” for all of these years to start from scratch. He’s a chef, and he’s got an epic resume. He came to a crossroads in his career and finally has the opportunity he’s been wanting. Either way, we are in a far better position than we have been. His hard work has paid off! But yesterday he was given an opportunity he just can’t pass up and he had a serious discussion about our future with me.

We have these fun dreams and fantasies. We want to live on the same street that the family I worked as a nanny for all those years lives on so they can help raise our babies. But then my Dad has this amazing acreage in Oregon just ripe for a kick-ass house, so we want my architectural genius of an Uncle to design it, with Eben’s dream kitchen of course! And then we’ll turn that property into a commune of some sort where all of our friends have little cabins here and there. But I also still want to make one more crazy move to a big city, and travel in Europe. Basically I want to win the lottery!

So my husband levels with me and says, “Look, I know that you want to move back to Oregon in a few years but I need to take this opportunity and if I do you need to be okay with us waiting a little longer.” At my opposing look he interjected, “Not forever, but a bit longer.” The bargaining began. He starts telling me he wants us to be able to get another car and buy a house while the market is cheap so we can sell it later and make money off of it.

Hey, I’m a rent kind of girl! I love me a fabulous apartment. I love moving around, finding new areas. A house is a house. Once you are in, you are in! And we had never talked about buying a house down here. I was taken aback. I mean I just wanted a new car, new computer, flat screen TV and vacation time that won’t bankrupt us but he was talking the big time here!

He said the new opportunity included benefit and I heard “babies!” So I say, “If you keep me here you need to understand that I want to start trying to have a baby in a year and a half. I want my baby to grow up in Oregon so my plan for the future may intersect with yours and move on without you. You have to let me fly home and look for houses and keep the moving forward thing happening even if we are here for a handful more of years. I will follow you but you have to be going where I am in the long run.”

Real benefits, real health insurance, means a real life. Doctors appointments, new glasses for my man, dental care, everything you dream about having when you hit 23 and you can’t mooch off of your parents for it anymore. This meant that having children wouldn’t have to wait forever and ever. The non-health insurance thing was the only birth control we had at this point. Benefits opened a whole new door!

We must have hashed this out for an hour and then we agreed. He had to jump on this. We both did. There is no question. And I woke up this morning and thought…wow. He’s going to want to look at houses. We are going to have to move to a new place closer to work to make things more convenient this fall and then we are going to go car shopping. We are going to be making real money and have real health benefits. We are going to be stable and then some.

I immediately became excited. We will be able to pay off the credit card and get the things I’ve been wanting so much. At first when he muttered “Buy a house,” I shrugged. As if I don’t clean enough space in the apartment! But then I thought, we can paint things, we can pick out real furniture, we can really make a home. We’d never had that chance before and it will be coming to us by the time the world ends in 2012, haha!

I woke up this morning and felt like I’d gone from 18 to 26 with new realities and responsibilities. It was a strange, yet awesome feeling. Although nothing is set in stone yet, it’s like bottled promise. The promise of a kind of life I’d thought was a far off reality. Even though I still got a little fantastical with it all, I found myself looking at new apartment and even home listings just because the dream would be becoming a reality.

So maybe I didn’t have to move to NYC and get a job with no skills and the mind of a 13 year old, but I did have to grow up and make some serious decisions with the man I love determining the path the Chriss’s would be taking. Maybe in 6 years I won’t remember how we got there, maybe these conscious choices won’t be what I expected at all, but at least, for now, I’m ready to get into the game a grow up…a little. I’ll still have my stuffed animals with me along the way, and I’ll still get excited to go to the theme parks, but at least I’ll enter the world of adulthood, bills, and responsibilities knowing I can kick its ass just like I’ve done with most everything else!