Drop It Like It's Hot

I have been to the mall every day this entire weekend because of my little brother, of course. He provides the tunes and I provide the wheels and lately, a favorite of his has been this old-school rap song called "Drop It Like It's Hot." 

And me? I never listen to words, I just love beats, but I recently watched a video by Patch Parables on YouTube and it was a parable of two monks. They were at the river one day and saw a woman in need trying to cross through the current. One monk, despite the laws that made any sort of contact or proximity to woman forbidden, picked her up and brought her across. As the monks were walking back to their monastery, the second monk finally exploded and asked: "How could you do that? How could you carry that woman?" And the first monk chuckled and answered, "I let go of that woman on the bank, you are the one who is still carrying her."

And I was astounded. A video of no longer than two minutes had just managed to tell me off, and not even in a bad way. I just sat there and thought about how heavily I let things weigh on me and how much I take to heart and realized that this heaviness, this weight, this sadness... it's all mine to give away and not to anyone else, because that doesn't serve anyone. I am to simply let go of it.

Easier said than done. 

Sometimes, even my deep cleansing breaths don't work, but in all honesty, the season of Lent has helped me a lot with learning to let go. When Catholics talk about Lent, many people emphasize the sacrifices that you are supposed to make, what you are "giving up" or fasting. But what others forget to mention is that this season, which ends tomorrow, is a season of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Prayer and doing kind works are what make the fasting meaningful. Lent is all about self-awareness. Learning more about who you are, what your weaknesses are and where your strengths lie. 

All in all, I've learned that I judge a little too harshly, have standards that are much too high and that I really do know how to love.

I just have to let go of my fear that the love I give will never be returned.

City Saturdays

I love New York City.

Call me crazy but the novelty of the Big Apple will never wear off on me. I've grown up around New York and am now going into the city more than ever, but I will always, always, always be excited and happy and in love when I'm there. That's just a fact of life.

Today, I got to spend time with my big sister from another mister! Days in the city with her are the best! Sometimes, there are more than two of us, but today, it was just us and it was a lot of fun. She met me at the Port Authority Bus Terminal (where we always meet, near the bathrooms and the ticket sellers) and we headed of to Strand, the booksellers, to spend our most recently earned paychecks on the closest thing you can buy to happiness--books. And my big sister? She's a book lover, down to the core and absolutely understands that heading to the Strand is like giving me Christmas, every time I walk in.

I managed to come away with my very own Strand tote (a must-have for all first-timers) and four titles that I was particularly interested in. They are:

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddharta Mukherjee

And I'm pretty stoked. This will be my first Doctorow experience and I've wanted to read Never Let Me Go since I was in high school, so bargain books are definitely where it's at.

After book shopping and spending tons of money at Strand (the most expensive thing I bought was my Strand bag), we had lunch at Junior's aka grilled cheeses with bacon on thick slices of challah and I think my heart and stomach almost died simultaneously because everything down to the ketchup and mayo on my steak-cut french fries was amazing.

And we headed home to celebrate Easter, not-so-far-away from each other.

Happiest day. The happiest in a long, long time.

I love you, Laur <3

Ergo Erit

Sometimes, the world throws a lot of things at you and the world does it fast, without calculation and without warning.

Today is Good Friday.
In the Catholic faith, today is the day that Jesus, the Son of Man and the Son of God, died on the cross for the salvation of souls. Talk about a curveball. Imagine walking through thirty-three years of life waiting for the moment of your torturous, painful and untimely death. I can't even come close to imagining something such as that. I can barely imagine tomorrow or the next ten years, let alone my death.

But something that they stress throughout this wonderful period of Holy Week (my favorite week of the year) is that everything done was done in love. Not through love or for love or because of love, in love. I think that's something important to remember. In love means more than just the normal social definition of love. It's John 3:16 ("For God so loved the world, he gave his only Begotten Son..."). It's a love so strong and infinite and beautiful that it cannot be fathomed by the mortal mind. It is a love that is unbound, unconditional and everlasting. And the scariest part?

We are called to love just like that.

But how?
That's a question that I ask all the time. How do you love those that hurt you? How can you love the people that have caused you pain or the people that have made you cry in the quiet of your own room in the middle of the night? Maybe that's a bit melodramatic and most of the time, one's first response is... why would you ever let someone make you cry like that? And oftentimes, my response is that I can't help it. I feel very deeply and thus am hurt very deeply. And that's okay. In response to adversity, people throw around a quotation:

The one who makes you cry isn't worth your tears. The one who's worth your tears, never makes you cry.

And that is entirely false. Because the people that make you cry are absolutely more than worth it--they are the ones that need you the most. They are the ones that need you to love them the most. And in many situations, they may never know that it is because of them that you cry. That's the crazy part about love--of any kind--whether it be romantic, friendly, sibling-esque, familial or intimate...love is painful in its truest and rawest form. We see that on the Cross and in the scars on Jesus' hands, feet and side.

How dare I not love like that?
There are so many people wanting for love, myself included. There are no excuses because we, as the Easter people, are called to love like that. But I struggle with it, I won't lie to you. There are moments that I wish I was an awful, obnoxious person was vindictive and took vengeance on those who have hurt me so that I could feel some sort of satisfaction because I made them hurt as much as they made me hurt. But in the end, those thoughts leave me as empty as they made me feel in the first place. It's counterproductive and unnecessary.

So sometimes the world throws crazy things at you. Sometimes they are painful, sometimes they are awful, sometimes you want everything to go dark so that for one moment, you can feel some sort of relief, but in those moments, don't turn your back.

Ergo erit. Therefore, be.

And love.

 

Big V: Clean Version

If you were friends with me on Facebook, you would have probably been surprised to see--given that I'm an introvert and totally not into going out--that I have one thousand, three-hundred and sixty-two friends. Yes. As in 1,362. Among those friends, I can tell you that maybe a handful are virgins and the rest are a mixture of varying degrees of sexual prowess (prowess because we're beasts, duh). And among those still, it's even funnier to think that even amongst my nearest and dearest, sex, sexuality, affection, lust and love are things that we converse about on a regular basis.

Yes, girls talk about sex too. 

And how can we not? It surrounds us on every side. There are people having sex in books (Thank you, Christian Grey), there are people having sex in movies, on TV, in cartoons, there are songs about it, poems about it, and the list could go on forever. But what's different is that what was once a taboo subject is now something that can be casually mentioned and celebrated. We, as humans, are to believe that not only is sex useful... it's our civic duty to procreate and make plenty. But in the books, movies, songs and conversations, everyone has their own reasons as to what decision they make in the end. The following are a few I've come across in my short twenty-years of life and are the reasons I often struggle with the most when it comes to my own decisions about sex and its consequences: 

1. Because everyone else is talking about it.

This is a big one. I mean, sometimes it's hard to be with a group of your closest girlfriends (and guyfriends) to find that you're the only one who either (a) hasn't gotten laid that weekend, (b) has never even had sex before and (c) aren't planning on doing it any time in your near future. It's hard to listen to conversations about mind-blowing orgasms and ridiculously kinky positions, moves, and techniques when you have absolutely no idea what they're talking about. That can get mondo frustrating and makes a person just want to sleep with the next person on the street. That's something I strongly advise against, for the sake of your healthy genitals. 

2. Because you want to know what it's like.

This stems off the conversational bit. Hearing so much about sex all the time from every inch of your life--from TV shows, to movies to books like 50 Shades of Gray--can and usually stimulates your curiosity. At this point you want to do it just because you want to know what it's like. All I'm saying is that don't let your first experience be one of those experiences you regret.

3. Because you want to love.

Important note: sleeping with someone is quite different from making love with someone. Don't let mainstream media fool you into thinking otherwise.

4, 5, 6: Because you feel left out and like you're missing out, you feel like you're in the wrong and you're beginning to think that everyone else is right.

The only one who can decide that is you. Feeling left out happens a lot. Take it from me, the eternal odd-numbered-wheel of the night. Sometime's I'm the 17th wheel, sometimes I'm the third. Oftentimes, I'm the fifth. Either way, I always feel like the one that's missing out on something grand. I occasionally ask myself whether or not I'm doing the right thing, but I think that's normal now and again. It only becomes dangerous when you transition into #6 and begin to think that everyone else is right. Sometimes, the only person that can decide that is you.

I am currently struggling with the suggestion that everything that I've learned since birth is wrong; that as a twenty-year-old I should be having sex and hooking up on a regular basis and getting practice with the male counterparts of the world and it shouldn't matter because if you tell yourself not to feel anything, you won't.

Thank goodness that there's something called freewill.

Our decisions are ours and ours alone.

Contrary to Popular Belief

I am an introvert.

Hard to believe, I know, especially since I sit here writing about my thoughts with such ease. But that's exactly it. I'm sitting in the comfort of my own home, not having to exert any energy in interacting with others and am just allowed to think and be with my own thoughts. That's what an introversion is all about.

Many people make the mistake of thinking that introverts are "just shy" and "don't know how to talk to people," but if you knew me, you would also know that I was captain of the speech and debate team in my high school, I make regular public appearances on behalf of my college, I teach my own catechesis group of baby Catholics and Christians and giving oral presentations in my classes? That's one of my fortes. Being an introvert is not about being shy, it's about the way interacting with others makes you feel. And me? I'm one of those people who would much rather be in my room, curled up with a book and with my quiet musings. That's just who I am.

I find interaction with others exhausting, especially when it comes to prolonged periods of interaction like parties or donor events that I'm obligated to attend as a student ambassador. Just because I'm good at chit-chatting and making small talk and am able to stand my ground when making a speech does not mean it's something I enjoy. In a world where networking and personality is essential to success, one must adapt--that doesn't necessarily mean I have to like it. And I don't. Not at all. Because after every event or every party, I need to hole myself up in my room in the comfort of my bed or even just a corner of the couch and recharge. Extroverts? They never need to recharge. They love, love, love being around people. They thrive when they're the center of the attention and they live for those moments that they're constantly talking to everyone and able to make bonds, form connections and be friends.

Me? I'm good with the friends I can count on one hand and the characters I've met in stories. But why am I talking about being an introvert?

In all honesty, Susan Cain says it best in her TEDTalk about introverts and being an introvert in today's world. She makes a really poignant argument for introverts in today's society and chastises the modern era for ignoring them or for excluding them in their design and creation of learning models and classroom settings and even in career fields, where the boisterous enthusiastic candidate is almost always taken over the reserved one. She talks a lot about misconceptions and helps you to understand them better and even as one who identifies as an introvert, I learned a lot about why I am the way I am and why I find it so gosh-darn tiring to be sitting with more than two people at a time.

So when I tell you that I don't want to go out because I'm good for the semester having only gone out one time, it's not because I'm a prude or a debbie-downer or because I'm boring. It's because I need time to be with myself, that's all.

You do you, babe.

Playing God

I really should be studying right now, but this post does have some relation to my schoolwork, so I deem it a necessary form of procrastination, lest I lose any of my current inspiration.

As third-year nursing students, we are required to take a class entitled Ethical-Legal Dimensions of Nursing. Part of our course requirements, as outlined by our professor, is a presentation of a "current event" or some sort of ethical dilemma that plagues healthcare today. Each of us pick a week and present on our various topics and this week, the debate became heated in a very kind way. One of the topics that was presented involved genetic testing of embryos that allowed scientists and doctors to "block" certain genes that were associated with congenital disorders and diseases. Basically, that means that if they found your baby had something, they would go in there and block that part of the DNA so that when the baby was born, it would be a "normal" newborn.

We were, of course, asked our opinion. And I told this story:

In 1992, before I was born, when the doctors were performing an ultrasound on my mother, they found that I had some defect in my brain (it could've been a cyst, or abnormal growth, who knows). The doctor looked at my mother and told her that there was a change I could be born with Down Syndrome,  and told her that it would be her decision, but abortion was an option. My mother said that regardless of the outcome, she really wanted to have this child and so the pregnancy proceeded and I was born.

And there was not a sign of Down Syndrome in sight.
I am twenty-years-old, a nursing student, winner of an academic scholarship, working two jobs, awarded a scholarship by a large corporation, Novo Nordisk, for my intent to do research regarding diabetes and the only real medical issues that plagued me growing up were a case of childhood asthma and eczema. I had no congenital defects and yet, my parents were still given the option to abort and that frightens me. Because what if knowledge of false-positives wasn't available to my mother? Or what if they lived in an area where the technology was not up to scratch with the medicine of that time period?

But what really gets me isn't the genetic testing at all. I'm all for leaps and bounds in medicine. If you're able to get your DNA mapped and find that you're at risk for having babies with x, y, and z and choose not to have children, that's one thing. Genetically engineering your baby is another thing because once you can block one part of a DNA sequence... who's to say you can't block the brown-eyes or the blonde hair or even the pasty-white skin?

Out of all the advances in medicine, genetic testing gives me the biggest heebie-jeebies. Playing God isn't like playing house. Once you've changed someone's DNA, you've changed their projected life and then the whole "everything happens for a reason" is gone because you can take every negative aspect out of the equation.

I just don't believe that humanity will continue to flourish if we eradicate the very issues that challenge us to grow, learn and cure the afflicted.

Everything happens for a reason.
And there are times when I'd rather not know why.

Progressive Command

I have a problem with my humanity.

Oftentimes, I'm frustrated by what seem to be the smallest of problems, the most mundane issues and the most base happenings of day to day living, however, this has never stopped me from becoming irritated. And that irritates me even further, knowing that what I'm frustrated about is not even really important and yet I allow myself to be irritated anyway. How much more human can you get?

Much more.

Recently, I've been struggling with something that is quite new to me. Without divulging too much, let it suffice to say that it is something that many individuals find fulfillment in, when said action is complete, but that I find both uncomfortable and overwhelming. Many people that I know hold this to be a sinful action (and no, it's not sex), while others consider it a basic human need (still not sex, guys). Others, still, think that it is both--that while sinful, it's basic human instinct. And while I am not someone who often has to endure such needs and/or instincts, it is in the moments that I do that I am most frightened of who I am and most in doubt of who I am supposed to be.

Last night was one of these rare moments. I was angry and frustrated and annoyed and all I could think about was how stupid I was, how ignorant and how ungrateful. And then, as if by divine intervention, I was texted by two different people: Jeremy and Lauren. Both of these wonderful individuals are friends that I met when I was on pilgrimage in Italy (#PGA) and to this day, they are individuals that I both admire and respect. So the two of them texting me last night in my moment of mental crisis was both relieving and mortifying. I still can't decide which I felt more--relieved or mortified. I guess I'm saying that because this issue wasn't something I was planning on sorting out nor was it something that I was planning to divulge, but as fate had it, here I was and there they were.

But I didn't want to tell. Because they were older than me and I looked up to them and I didn't want them to think any differently of me...and I didn't want them to not love me anymore either. And for that thought, I got a small scolding and a textual slap across the wrist. When I finally admitted I was having a problem and begged them not to be mad, I was greeted by only one thing: love. They thanked me for sharing, told me they were proud of me and guided me through the brokenness that I had allowed to rest inside me allowing me to rise above it. And even though I was ashamed and afraid of their repulsion, I received only their love, which made me feel even more ashamed for questioning it in the first place. But that, they also told me in their own beautiful ways, was also natural... and they told me that they loved me again. And I stared at my phone and wished with all my might that in that moment, we were together or even at hugging distance.

But we weren't and were infinite instead.
And I'm not saying that to quote The Perks of Being a Wallflower, I'm just saying that because that's how I felt. In that time that they allowed me to be vulnerable and ashamed, they were also patient and waited for me to admit to my own mistakes. They did not taunt or yell or become angry. They knew, even with miles separating us, that what I needed was tough love; they needed to love me while also acknowledging that I had fallen. That kind of bond is indescribable, inexplicable... and so very familial.

And today? Today, I received a text from Jeremy telling me that not only is today a date; it is a progressive command. Today calls us to move forward and as a result, reminds us of the positive moments that await us.

I'll take a step.

"Everything"

Romantic, is it not?

So I have a thing for XKCD and one of my closest friends recently shared this particular comic on Facebook. It made me laugh quietly to myself because a few years ago, there would be no mistaking this boy for anything other than a pompous, hard-hearted and hard-headed prat. And despite being obnoxious and pretentious, he was always kind to me, though never really quite so kind to anyone else. Six years later (wow, it's really been that long?), he's still my best friend (although this friendship could be very one-sided and not mutual, I am always left guessing)--so much so that I introduce him as my older brother and he is, to date, the only young man that my parents trust leaving me with. Miracles can happen. 

Anyways, I'll write a post about him another time but to get back to the point: him posting this made me happy. Because that pompous prat that I still admired back in high school despite all his oddities and character flaws (though there weren't many in my eyes) is beginning to show others the boy I always saw and knew and cared for.

And if you're reading this, David? 

I love you, big bro.

Atychiphobia

Coming from the Greek, "morbid fear" (phóbos) and "unfortunate" (atyches), atychiphobia is literally the fear of failure. That's right, the fear of failing at something, anything and the fear of failing in general. I tell myself all the time that I'm not afraid of failing; that I'm just a hardworking individual who does what it takes to succeed because I like putting my best foot forward. My subconscious, however, knows that that's not the whole story.

To many, it doesn't really seem like I'm afraid of anything, more like I'm just really calculating and rational because I want to consider all avenues and pick the one that will bring me the most success. I know, however, that when you start to freak out about things impossible--like exams start to give you stomach aches and just the thought of not getting into graduate school starts to make you feel physically ill, you have a problem. Truth be told, I am very rational. But I'm rational to the point where my thoughts almost stop making sense. A perfect example is something that happened to me last semester.

In the spring of 2012 I was graciously asked to be an RA alternate (Resident Assistant, Alternate) meaning that I would attend training with the other resident assistants, learn the same skill sets but be without compensation or a job until a position was vacated and even then, I was not guaranteed a position unless I was chosen through a tedious and outdated hiring process. As it was, I was offered a position in the fall of 2012 but in the few months before, I had tried to resign because I was scared that I wouldn't be able to do the job well. I was afraid of being an RA failure. And I had reason to be, what with my ridiculous schedule, credit load and extracurriculars, but I was going to deny myself any inkling of this experience without having even given it a shot because I didn't want to fail my supervisor (who's one of my heroes/mentor/big brother/positive role model people) and those I cared so much about on staff.

My supervisor threw out my resignation letter and wouldn't allow me to hinder myself from just giving the job a shot. I came back in January as a new RA and am so grateful that I tried because I honestly love it and everything that comes with it. And much to my surprise, I'm not bad at it at all. In fact, I don't even come close to failing! And I would never have known that, had it not been for those who challenged me to see past this fear of failure and realize that there's something more important--my growth.

Don't be content to sit on the sidelines because you're afraid to fall. Don't be okay with standing still because you're afraid to miss a step. Don't be satisfied with your life now simply because you'd rather stay the same than try to grow.

Take it from me--the initial panic attack that ensues after being thrown into a new situation is absolutely insane, but afterwards? You thrive. You flourish. You move. So yes, part of me is still afraid of failing; it's just part of who I am. In light of recent events, however, I've found that standing still is its own kind of failure.

Two steps forward, one step back... and at the end of the day, you're still one step ahead of where you were yesterday.