When It Rains, It Pours

Have you ever had a moment when it hits you, that you have become a shiny new version of yourself?

It hit me tonight; I have pretty quickly evolved into the next version of Caiti. I’m a believer that not only do we begin and end chapters of our lives, but entire books as well. And I think I just began a whole new book of my own…

It seems so much easier to come to realizations about what we don’t want in life, through on-going turmoil, unfortunate events, poor judgment and uncontrollable circumstances that leave us powerless to learning a lesson and trying to get out alive. Why is it that those negative experiences seem to be so much more powerful in holding us down, than the positive ones do bringing us up? I find that when it rains it pours—both in our favor and against.

When you wake up late, can’t seem to get your hair to work and accidentally burnt your coffee taking way too long to get out the door, your whole day seems to follow suit. When you wake up to a cute text message, your skinny jeans fit flawlessly and step outside to gorgeous weather…your whole day seems to follow suit.

2009 rained for me. It poured negativity and I only victimized myself to what felt like entrapment. I woke up late on January 1st, had a bad hair day on June 15th and burnt my coffee all year long while insignificant progress lulled in between. When 2010 rolled around I made the decision this year was going to be something completely different. I was going to be different.

This year, in the few shorts weeks that have gone by, I’ve shifted my wake-up-late-bad-hair-day mentality to taking my life into my own hands. I decided to stop waiting, and make things happen.

When it rains, it pours, and it goes both ways. If you can trick the system and push through a bad hair day by putting on a cute hair or throwing your hair up in a messy do and facing the day with a huge grin on your face and say, “ha!”, you can surely tilt the scale back in your favor. The more you do, the more happens to you. And the more that happens to you, the more you discover all the gorgeous things you want in your life.

One of the beautiful parts of my life are the amazing people in it. I feel so blessed.

Recently a new person has come into my life that has reminded me of the power good people can have in our lives. So often we allow for toxic people to soil our bright outlook and come between the vision of being the greatest version of ourselves.

Having moved to California from a small town in Pennsylvania almost seven years ago, I have learned that not only is it okay to be selective about who you surround yourself with, but it’s the golden rule. People make such a large impression on us. We see a successful person and sort of mentally put them up on this mentor pedestal. On the contrary, when we’re chatting it up with someone at the bar who uses harsh language and offensive profanity every other word, we stop and think…”what the f*ck buddy?” Our tone immediately shifts gears and our brows furrow as we attempt to keep on the same pissed off page.

I’m not saying everyone is weak to morph into every influence around us, but the people who fill our current atmosphere absolutely help set the tone, and all it takes is a tone to shift that scale back against optimism and gaining positive things out of an experience.

Aside from fighting against the presence of toxic people, there are people out there who actually enhance our life experience. They don’t drain us of our resources; they bring some to the table. Someone came into my life this year who has shown me life can be good to me again. He is someone who wants only good for everyone. I am so grateful for all those I have in my life that are that good to me and so happy to have yet another person who shows me, it’s all worth it.

It may not be as easy as faking a smile out the door when something just plain crappy has started out our day, but with a little bit of fight, we can make it pour positivity, pour opportunity. We can relish this life and it’s infinite paths, and walk tall with a stupid grin on our face…

Defense vs. Offense

818-489-8917: “Hey girl!”
Me: “Hey, who is this?”
818-489-8917: “What! U don’t remember?”
Me: “No…?”
818-489-8917: “We practiced mating.”
Me: “I’m not gonna be very much fun at this game, can you please stop texting me.”
818-489-8917: “Okay mate. Guess I won’t be mounting u in the front seat.”
1 hour goes by.
818-489-8917: “Can I get a what what Caiti?”

* * *

It’s Thursday night at 9:00 pm and this is the text conversation I have to deal with as a 24-year-old girl living in Los Angeles.

Guys: You dig your own grave.

Girls: We have to stick to together and not let these guys get away with speaking to us in any other way aside from respectful.

Who, past the age of puberty, thinks this is an okay thing to text someone? Come on.

P.S. Anyone who wants to have some fun with this guy, who isn’t above stooping to his level, and text him back, go for it.

* * *

Dating is such a catch 22. We have to be so careful. I hear things come out of guys’ mouths like this texter guy, and even worse out at the bars and from my guy friends, that I have trouble believing the genuine article is really out there. It makes women just want to date defensively.

Defensive dating is never allowing yourself to be vulnerable. It’s making those you date wonder and have to guess as to what you’re doing or how you feel. It’s always treating someone new like they have already hurt you like those from the past.

Offensive dating is saying, “I like you.” It’s openly accepting a date invitation. It’s not giving the run-around. It’s being in the moment, with another human being and being true to yourself and true to that person. It leaves you wide open. It leaves your heart wide open to be broken, or wide open for someone to come in and piece it back together.

The fastest way to find the right person for you, is to open your heart. The fastest way to get hurt, is to open your heart. So what do you do?

I don’t have the answer. I’m a 24-year-old single girl living in Los Angeles, hoping to find a needle in a haystack. But the silver lining is, in this big city, with this fast-paced temporary sort of life style people seem to live, it’s only that much easier to find the good guys. We are just surrounded by guys that don’t measure up, it only makes it that much easier to peak over the line and see who’s standing tall above all the rest.

Limitlessness

I love the rain. The love the sound it makes lightly tapping on windows, tapping on the pavement. I love the way the world sort of has this earthy smell and almost seems to wake up and yawn at the world from a long slumber. I love the way the rain falls from a place you can’t touch. It kisses your face, your eyes, your cheek.

A rainy day can make you slow down. You drive a little bit slower; your music selection is a little more mellow. A rainy day can make you notice things. Things you wouldn’t normally stop to really see. It can make you more kind. More forgiving. More understanding.

I come inside from sitting on my stoop watching the rain, shiver a bit in my sweater, slid my boots off and let them fall to the floor and put on a pot of tea. I hug that cup of tea in my hands and soak up this feeling of almost reawakening from a long slumber of my own.

* * *
I went to the movies the other week and saw the preview for one of the new Leonardo Dicaprio movies, Inception. There was a line he said in the movie that really resonated with me…

“Never recreate from your memory, always imagine new places.”

I found myself pondering this simple thought repeatedly the remainder of the evening.

Only a few short years post college graduation, and I can already make the statement that college was the best time of my life thus far. I went to the most elite school for photography, and I excelled there. I had a great group of girl friends. I had the best guy. I had a huge vision for myself; for the greatness that the world after graduation would prove to be.

I graduated. We all did. And we all moved on from the temporary friendships we had in each other. We broke up. There wasn’t going to be a sunny apartment in the city for us to explore our new journey together in. The huge vision of working with a big time photographer wasn’t coming true, as I had hoped. The greatness of the world after college through my rose colored glasses wasn’t proving to be as shiny as I thought it would be. I had such high expectations that life would continue on this Starbucks for breakfast and Redbull and vodka for dinner lifestyle with my girl friends still there and the love of my life by my side.

I guess I didn’t really anticipate the amount of change I was about to experience. Change in my life and in myself. My life kept propelling forward as my life in Santa Barbara faded out of sight through my rearview mirror.

The past couple years I’ve been trying to get back there. I’ve been trying to recreate who I was then, how I felt then and what I had then, from what I remembered of the best time of my life. I thought if I could get those feelings back, I could certainly apply that outlook and good fortune to my life now and I would surely be the happiest I could be again. But I’ve come to discover the flaw in my plan. I’m not the same girl anymore. And it’s not such a bad thing…

For a while now I thought I was doing something wrong. I thought I had lost parts, large parts, of who I was along the way because so many things that I associated myself with were no longer. But the beauty in it is, I can be whoever I want to be now.

I stopped imagining somewhere along the way when I realized my past is now my history. I didn’t want to accept a new face for myself. Who would I be without that place? Without those people? Without that man? Without that life? And the answer is so simple…anyone I want.

We are never only the sum of what we’ve done. We have the potential to be what we imagine. We have the ability to imagine new places, new experiences, new people, new adventures in this lifetime that we can live out to the fullest potential.

Life doesn’t stop. Don’t decide to let your wide eyes and belief in the greatness of the world hinder based on any of the past. The present is the outcome of our previous choices, but the constant imagining of new places allows for limitlessness in tomorrow…limitlessness for the rest of your life.

See Good

We have a neighbor we call the “Fortune Cookie”. He is one of the happiest people I know, always spreading a good word. Sometimes I envy his outlook, but most of the time I just try and soak it up. I’ve been out of sorts lately—well not so much lately as for about the past year. I’ve been struggling to re-find myself and feel that strength, optimism and faith I used to hold so dear to my heart.

Every time I see our neighbor outside, he speaks to me. His words speak to me. I was outside with my dog a couple minutes ago and I ran into him. He asked me if I’m doing well, and I responded with a shrug and said, ‘I’m okay’. It was clear, even though my oversized sunglasses that shielded the hurt in my eyes, that I wasn’t. He asked me in his rough English, ‘You’re roommate, she has a boyfriend, no?’ ‘Yes’ I responded. ‘That make you a little jealous?’ I wish it were only something as trivial as that…

I never really opened up to him before. I always force a smile even if I’m down, and tell him everything is okay. But this morning, on this fateful day, I couldn’t fake it for him.

I explained to him the biggest of my current problems. I told him about my car accident and having to quit my job. I held it together as he said to me, ‘You see good, it will be good.’

Such a simple theory—one I used to have faith in. Although as previously stated, I’ve been low in the faith department lately. As he walked away, he said again to me with a smile, looking right at me, ‘See good.’

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the Fortune Cookie was an extension of God here on earth. His words always come with a consoling understanding and a hopeful disposition.

As of this moment, I’m going to see good. I’m going to at least fake it, until one day I wake up and truly feel good. The optimism has to shine back through at some point, why not force it for a while. It can only help…right?

Burnt Toast & Shattered Glass

I burnt 4 pieces of toast this morning attempting to make breakfast and shattered a glass custard dish of egg. I watched the small glass dish slip out of my hands and slowly drop to the floor as shards of glass flew in the air, almost looking gracefully suspended in time; almost like I could reach out and grab them and save myself the clean up. But I didn’t reach out and try and grab the pieces. My eyes watched them fall to the ground and bounce off the tile and walls until they found their settling places sprawled out all over the kitchen.

There is something utterly defeated by such an act of breaking glass. It makes you feel as incompetent as a five year old and as clumsy as a 95 year old. In the past two weeks I have broke three glass items in my kitchen. Every time I react the same way…a sigh as my chin falls to my chest, a small cry out to God asking him ‘Why?’ and I head to the pantry to find a dustpan and broom.

I continue to feel victimized by these seemingly trivial yet irritatingly repetitive minor infractions that violate my sanity. For once, I would like one blissful day without even the hint of one of God’s many practical jokes exploited at my expense. Just once…

Pines And Pains

There is this thing in my life that is like a drug to me. It gives me a rush and leaves me with a high…every time.

The devil on my shoulder says to me, ‘Walk forth. Prosper in what gives you this overwhelming feeling. It feels good…doesn’t it?’ The angel on my shoulder says nothing. She does not give me any direction. Does not warn me, does not encourage me, just sits in silence, watching me fall and stand back up and fall, time and time again.

There is a part of me that gets satisfaction out of even the smallest dose. A dose of what feels like my own personal brand of kryptonite can last me for weeks. It can leave me feeling reconnected, for a good while. It’s not just a reconnection to the drug; it makes me feel reconnected to the pumping of my own heart. It makes me feel reconnected to life. It makes my eyes see things in a different light. It makes me feel like I feel good in my skin again. I feel home again.

And after awhile, that lingering feeling starts to fade. I begin to realize it’s not coming back. And I’m alone again. And once again, a piece of myself falls away—a piece that feels, in the moment, gone forever. I start to think…if I continue this pattern, I will lose all of myself in due time. But then I think, if I have to feel this crash after the greatest high I have ever felt from this force, this overwhelming thing in my life, I would do it all over again. I would take the smallest taste to feel that good, even if it left me feeling this low.

I stop to reread what I have written so far about my addiction and I see how unhealthy this behavior is. Perhaps that’s why I continually try and walk away from it. I don’t need to read it written down, or hear it from someone else, or listen to the opinions of others to truly see what I am doing to myself. I know. I hurt myself repeatedly. And the worse part is, even the villain in this twisted story gets hurt over and over. Villains, addictions, unhealthy things are supposed to be heartless. Are supposed to be the “bad guys” in the story. They’re not supposed to feel or be hurt by the victim who keeps going back for more.

But that’s not the addiction I struggle with. In this twisted love story of victim and villain, they are one in the same. The victim is also the villain, and the villain is also the victim. Each side pines and pains over the other.

I ask myself, what should I do? What is the right thing to do? Sometimes I think I’m supposed to live a simpler life than this—without the drug. I could be happier with a simpler life. That’s probably the right thing. Let this addiction fall away. If maybe I just stop going back for a dose, eventually I will forget what it tastes like, and I’ll feel okay. Maybe I wont feel that high again, but I’ll feel good enough. I can learn to be okay without it.

When I look back at the days when this addiction wasn’t an addiction, but an everyday part of my life, I recall how similar the pattern looked then to how it looks now. It wasn’t simple then either—it was pretty messy. It was utterly imperfect. It was a bit of a rollercoaster with ups and downs, as it is now. But the ups and downs came and went much faster. It never left me feeling alone then. It never took away a piece of me after a fall. It never left me feeling so low, for so long, before it scooped me up and showed me how much I’m worth. How much I matter. How much I mean in the world, if only to even one person. The ups and downs were a part of having this overwhelming thing in my life—the ups and downs weren’t a lifestyle, as they have become now…

There is only one way to have this overwhelming force in my life. It’s to be okay with feeling like and being the victim and the villain from time to time. It’s coming to terms with the messy, imperfectness of it. It’s realizing that nothing that makes me feel higher than anything I’ve ever felt, will keep me consistently high. It’s being okay with the fact that highs can dip to lows and even out and go back up again.

I’m left lingering with a taste, all over again…

I don’t know what I’m doing.

Agree With All That You Do

How brave are we supposed to be in life? Sometimes I feel like I’m not brave enough.

When I look back, I feel like I used to be so much braver. Braver to not just take the plunge but to swim around for a while. Braver to perhaps never even get out.

I made so many decisions that made me who I am today; go vegetarian, move to California, go to photography school, get a puppy, fall in love, live on my own, attempt financial freedom before I’m even ready, find a new and mysterious relationship with God, spontaneously say yes when it’s safer to say no, create a close friend out of a stranger with a ‘hi’…

In the present, I often feel like I’m not being brave enough. I feel like my choices look so small. But the truth is, in every milestone I make, I never feel brave enough. I feel like each step I take feels so small in comparison to the leaps I could take. But how often do we properly gauge our own actions? It can be difficult to see the magnitude of our choices in the midst of making them, but in hindsight we can appreciate even the babiest of steps to land us to where we are in the present. How do we learn to appreciate them now?

I ask myself this all the time and have been struggling to force present appreciation for my choices and my youth and life in it’s current standing, but I continue to fall short.

I wish I knew the answer to my own question. But I fear as human beings it’s something that has to be self-taught. Something we must learn to do on our own. To learn to be eternally and continuously grateful for our own personal strides that morph us into what’s to come. We have to stop looking at what we’ve done to become who we are, and focus on what we’re doing today to become who we will be tomorrow. We must learn to congratulate ourselves, pat ourselves on the back, for what we decide today. For our seemingly meek but meaningful bravery today.

It comes back to faith. Having faith in ourselves, trusting ourselves, to make decisions that could result in an ocean of outcomes, but to truly believe in ourselves—back ourselves up when no one else will, perhaps when everyone else is…everyone but our own number one fan, our inner self.

Because at the end of the day, no one else completely understands the inner workings of our brain like we do. No one else is in our head. No one else hears every unfiltered thought. Exposing those thoughts to others can compromise the original reasoning behind a developing choice, causing a reevaluation that can counteract what we truly want.

We all deserve what we want. No one, no one, should prohibit what we want in life. We all deserve our desires. You should agree with all that you do.