How many times can I break till I shatter?
Over the line can't define what I'm after

So yea... not gonna lie.  I heard this song, and thought, wow, this sounds a little Collective Soul-ish, a little Train-ish, but I most certainly did not think, a little O.A.R.ish.  OAR, as in, Of a Revolution.  As in, the hippie music that my friends listened to in college, along with Dispatch, those borderline mainstream groups like Guster, and the next coming of Gd himself, Dave Matthews. 

But I digress (per usual).  I was away this week, with laptop in tow.  And wow, I had so many moments lying in bed at 3am with so many thoughts running through my head... thoughts that would have made their way down on paper seemingly really easily.  And I just couldn't find the energy to do it.  Because the truth is, a blog really isn't just a journal.  I don't know who reads and oftentimes write as if no one is reading.  And then sometimes I sit back and think about something that I wrote and I'm horrified.  And now, for the first time, when I go to write I stop and think about what others will think.  How I will be judged.  This is always the dilemma faced by a "blogger".... we put our lives out there, call us voyeurs or call us narcissistic, and then are shocked when someone actually reads it.

I have a good friend whom I've known for many years, and throughout the years I've absolutely played the 'grass is greener' game with her; at least I did in my head.  I noticed that it was worse when I was unhappy, which is of course understandable.  When I was happy and content, my grass seemed plenty green.  But when times were, err, less than content, I just remember thinking, not that I wanted to take away her happiness for myself, or wanted her to be unhappy.... I just wanted to experience a minute of it.  I was still in school; she had a job that seemed like fun.  I wished to be less curvy, less muscular; she had a body seemingly made for clothing - or probably made to be sans clothing.  My parents were divorced and I lived with a new dynamic duo of perfectionist parents who were damn hard to impress; hers were still together and were of the 'not my child' variety (you know the type: the ones who think even their ugly child is beautiful; who will defend their 'perfect' child to the end, and genuinely don't see any flaws in their little prince/princess...  I'm not sure which child comes out better, the one who feels like they can't ever measure up, or the ones who thinks he/she is perfect.  I've always wanted to experience the latter, the whole "parents are your biggest fans" type of thing, even if just to try it out.  Actually, come to think of it, if you are the product of this type of parent, you likely don't know you are.  Carry on....).  I could go on with this, but at the risk of exposing any identifying characteristics, I will stop.  The reason I am mentioning this is that something interesting has started happening lately.  Back in November or December, which holy shit was almost a year ago, RS and I discussed what a bad year 2007 was, and how 08 would be better.  I should have known better than to open my mouth,  because, wow, 2008 has been bad... for reasons I've discussed here, and others I haven't.  2008 was bad in ways I could not even begin to imagine possible, never mind predict.  2008 was the type of year that made you look up at the sky and say, "for real?"  So here is the odd part.  This girl, the one with that grass that always just looked so green and high and perfect, has expressed similar sentiments to me.  About wanting to 'switch lives' with me, if only just for the day.  And I must have expressed some kind of disbelief that anyone would want my life.  This was not a stranger.  This was someone who has seen me, spoken to me, was there at the funeral, sat shiva in my home.  And no, she's never seen me at my worst.  Never seen me a crying, bumbling mess.  Never seen me completely fallen apart.  But she's seen enough.  So to know all of this - to see all of this - and to still envy anything about my life?  To be truthful, I probably got a little insulted.  You know, because I have a monopoly on unhappiness and stress, and all.  I probably was deeply offended that anyone could possibly make that kind of comparison, and possibly want the horrid life I was currently living.  Her answer?  "Grass is always greener."  I listed all of the responsible, adult, stable, wonderful things she had going for her in life, of which any person, guy or girl, would be envious.  She said she felt like her life was a little like Groundhog Day.  She made mention of the at-best flirty at-worst much worse text messages I had in my phone.  She missed that excitement.  She discussed my fb pictures, my circle of friends, and asked why I didn't invite her out more often.  I assured her that I loved her, and loved spending time with her, and that my friends really liked her, but that my friends are a bunch of fun as hell single girls and she has a serious boyfriend of years, so I just don't assume it's the type of night she'd be into.  She responded that it's the type of night she needed and made me promise to take her out when I got back.  Everyone once in a while, you see a crack.  You get to see an angle no one else gets to, or that you never saw before.  Like burnt grass, or Astroturf.  It is just a minor thing.. surely not enough to completely diminish all of the other stellar characteristics.  To the rest of the world the grass would still appear to be green, green, green.... but for me something changed a little bit.

This person about whom I speak is not really the gist of this entry.  I've had some (okay, a lot) of family drama that unfortunately my friends were dragged into for the sheer unfortunate fact that they were there.  And I just thought, when you leave, you get to walk away from this.  To your 'normal' life.  And when I leave, well.... I don't get to leave.  The point is, and man is this epiphany not going to be anything quite so new under the sun, I have got to figure out a way to not make it matter.  To not at all care about my friends' perfect hair or perfect bodies or perfect jobs or perfect apartments or perfect boyfriends or parents who think they're perfect.  Because it doesn't matter.... coveting it won't make it happen.  It seems to make more sense to redirect all of that energy into my own life and create my own "perfection".  Oh yea... and much of this alleged perfection is bullshit.  Because people don't have to have a broken family to be miserable.  Don't need to have a dying father, or a deceased father, or an estranged father, to be miserable.  Stress and anguish and unhappiness and grass-is-greener syndrome comes in all shades of misery.  Some of us are just better at hiding it than others.  Maybe they are the smart ones.  My mother and I have conversations about how certain people in life really are so damn successful because of their confidence.  They attract the opposite sex because of their amazing confidence.  They get jobs because of that confidence, and actually get the job done because they are confident that they can do it.  My mother regularly tells me that I need to learn to "fake" some of that confidence; and I respond that it can't be faked.  Well, maybe it can.  Some of us put up a lovely front.  And others of us write blogs 

... but where were they going without ever knowing the way?  Isn't this theme horrific?  it is, i apologize, but i needed some change.  ok, i needed a lot of change.  that's the keyword here.  that's what i'm all about.  today my horoscope read as follows: Today is all about new growth -- you are focusing on the blossoms in your garden, rather than the old growth. Cultivate anything that seems like it's got potential and prune away the rest.


Was exchanging text messages most of the night with a guy who seems mostly sweet but dim-witted.  He's not really "new".... I "know" him from 4 years ago.  I guess I'd make a bad guy, because I just found this particular guy way too easy and not the slightest bit of a challenge.  Although I like to think that there are some guys who are equally bored with easy, no-challenge girls... or at least recognize that there is a use for them that does not involve speaking.  I found myself both laughing and rolling my eyes at the late night/early morning texts.  When the conversation turned to 'beer pong', I answered, "I'm not all that into playing games", and laughed to myself at the double entendre.  I wrote him off pretty quickly, thinking, well he's cute and Jewish and sweet and he'll be gone in a few days... no harm, no foul.  But sometimes people can surprise you.  I woke up to this:

"...things are falling into place for me and i'm finding a structure to it.  the same is happening to you and you just dont know it yet, it'll take a little time but things will resolve themselves ... ".  I guess despite all of his claims of being a terrible Jew (he technically is modern Orthodox), his faith is still there.  I'm hoping mine is, too.

Life is feeling stifling, lately.  That is the best word that I can use.  I'm itching for change, itching so very badly.  I bought a new phone the other night, on a whim.  To go with the new iPod.  The new wallet.  The new filofax.  (Irony being that most of the aforementioned are pink... and I claim to not be girly).  It's been the year of dresses above the knee, letting my hair dry naturally, and wearing bikinis.  For a Jewish girl, putting away the blow dryer IS throwing caution to the wind.  It's the year I graduated law school, the year I took 2 states' bar exams.  It was the year I held down two jobs while going to school, and dodged a bullet by not taking the Bear Stearns internship.  By all accounts it seems like I should really be starting my life now.  I feel like I've spent the last few years of my life waiting to be happy, waiting for my life to start.  While I met the most fantastic girls in college, I spent most of college really miserable, and thinking, when I finally get out of this place, I will be happy.  When I am back in NY, I will be happy.  And New York has certainly provided me with the backdrop for the next act of my life.  In that next phase in NY I found happiness I hadn't know before; it was also punctuated by the most hearwrenching, exquisite pain I've ever experienced. 

If college taught me that I wasn't skinny or pretty enough, then 1L taught me that I wasn't smart enough.  At some point I learned that a girl with a bachelor's in history and near eastern and judaic studies could take to finance.   And I think I've finally learned to stop dating guys who primarily love petite blond girls (really... am I just a masochist?  Because spending your energy regretting not being something you can't ever possibly be..... dumb).  The aforementioned guy is supposedly into eyes and chests... now that guy's got my number ;-)

3L year was just one thing to fixate on after another.  The wedding was a wonderful fixation.  I think my dress was far too low cut, and I needed double sided tape to 'stay in it'.. but it was amazinggg, as were my equally amazingggg very tall black satin beaded peep toe heels.  My speech was a labor of love, the country club was gorgeous, and the affair went off without a hitch.  And while a few habits died hard (ok, just one... but it died the most horrible death), there was some lovely company, something new upon which to fixate.  Or maybe someone to fixate on me.  I spent my Winter break taking a 9-5 class to free up my Spring semester, because really, vacations are overrated.  And come January, fixated on keeping my one job in sec reg, while taking on something entirely new in investment bank compliance.  Juggling classes and two jobs, I thought I was so busy.... until February 12, the night you know all about.  Wow... how is it that I don't even cry about the death, but so much as thinking about that night (nevermind writing about it) covers me in chills?  Without going into the specifics yet again.... that obviously became my fixation.... juggling school/job1/job2/prelim bar study on weekends/hospital.  And actually, I was at a FINRA conference when I realized I had many missed calls and found out that he was hemorrhaging into his brain.  I didn't go out the entire months of February, March or April.  My friends came to me.  We tried to cheer my mother up, and bought bottles of white zin, and cakes for shabbas, and baked cupcakes with icing and sprinkles on her birthday.  I sat with her on the couch night upon night, trying to fill up the hours.  Yes, they're sharing a drink they call loneliness, but it's better than drinking alone.  Because everyone was there in the start, and people did their part in coming to the hospital, but that other part, surviving those horrible, lonely hours, the empty bed, the quiet house.... that was all me and Mom.  It really was.  On my mother's birthday, I'd plan to take her to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens.  We'd return there on Mother's Day; Jay in tow. 

The first night that I went out - for RS' birthday - I came home hours later to find everyone still awake.  There were some issues, i won't go into them, but EMTs had to be called.  The house became a zoo again.  After coming home from the hospital, there would be several complications, and he'd end up in the hospital more than once.  The day before my Remedies final, I stood in the street, barefoot and crying, asking Jay where his glucometer was, while he motioned for me to just go away.  Every phase became a fixation of dealing with the situation without so much as a thought of any life outside of it.  The next phase became studying for the bar in a house of chaos, and I guess my brattiness was heard on high, as I felt bad for myself, and begrudged that other people didn't need to study under such extreme stress.  I guess my prayers were answered because my "stress" was "taken away".  Be careful what you wish, you may regret it.  Careful what you wish, you just might get it.  I did my job, was a gracious shiva host, wrote thank yous, gave a eulogy, hugged and kissed when really I didn't want to be touched, and went home to study promissory estoppel and the pre-existing duty rule.  After the shiva, studied from 10am to 2 or 3am... no, really.  And I kept telling myself that the bar would bring.... freedom.  Sure, maybe I'll have to take it again, but I won't have to think about that for months. 

None of it is like I planned.  In part, I think it's because, I've been fixating on capital-L LIFE and my family and my responsibilities for so long that I literally don't know how to just do something for myself.  Don't know how to let go.  Don't know how to feel like I deserve it, and not feel guilty, and not feel worried that if I let go, a crisis may arise that I can't handle.  And this next part, well, Gd forgive me, but I feel so stifled.  I can see my mother's pain but will likely never truly understand it unless it becomes my issue, as well.  But I feel as if she begrudges me my youth.  I cry out that I no longer have a life outside of our family.  That I don't see the outside of our little world.  That I feel stifled and backed against a wall and that i feel as if there's no way out.  And she gets angry, and responds that I'm shoving it in her face, that I have my whole life ahead of me.  And she is mourning for her former lover and her former life.  And she is contemplating fate, and contemplating contingency and the decisions she has made that led her to where she is.  But at least she was able to live.  And that's not to say I don't want her to live - REALLY live - for another 30-40 years, but I feel as if my life hasn't even begun yet and under the current circumstances it just can't. 

I went out the other night for the first time in literally months.  It was wonderful to see CB and at first glance we immediately talked about guys with funky spunk (ok, she told, while I laughed hysterically), girls in poorly executed outfits, and the joys of being a 34D.  She took me out, sick and all, and by the next day, over eggs and toast on the Upper West Side on the most humid of days, the talk got serious.  Not to guys.  Not to sex.  Not to bodies (we're both okay with that at the moment... check back later).  We discussed familial responsibilities.  She said that sometimes, if you give too much of yourself to anything, whether it's a person or a few people, you're hurting them more than helping them because you make them grow dependent on you.  She said that sometimes you just need to say, okay, I need to have a life, and I'm 25, and we can't spend the rest of our days throwing ourselves on a grave marker in mourning.  We need not be partying, but life is for the living and we need to live. 

I'm not 100% sure how I feel about all of this.... but I also know how easily it will become to fixate on being the man of the house, on making sure my mom is not alone (since the first night I went out, she was up until 5am crying), on not letting things fall apart.  So... is there a happy medium between having a life of your own and still not abandoning your family??

ps... enjoy the fotografias :)  they will be down in a day but are up for a certain person who can't access fb when she's at work ;-)

It's a quarter to 1 and I'm sleepy and I'm a loser for not having gone out tonight.  But in the past 3 days I've taken 21 hours' worth of tests, and drove to dirty Jerz and back, and I don't think you could have dragged me to Mansion if I weren't as tired as I am.  There is champagne in my room.  Flowers, balloons, cards.  A whole cake in my fridge that I'd be eating if I weren't lactarded (term "lactard" (c) CB) and weren't too lazy to get up and take a pill.  Calories don't count on the day you take the test.  And I'm reading Perez Hilton and wondering why Samantha Ronson never takes off the fedora, and thinking Lindsay Lohan could do way better than that.

I miss my friends terribly.  It is now officially time for me to give up the bitchy attitude and the 'woe is me, my life is more stressful than yours' complex and rejoin the land of the living - literally.  I need to finish writing thank you cards, call my insurance company to inquire as to why they have yet to pay the anesthesiologist for my little visit there a few months ago, and, oh, about a million other things.  Like wearing clothing (including under garments) and doing my hair (anything with it.. really), and lowering the APR on my mother's credit card, and fixing her printer for a third time (I'd also like it noted that I've now fixed the ice machine, the light in the fridge, and the water filter... Jap, my ass), and getting her iPod ready for her to go away, and calling my physical therapist.  I'm so tired but just going to sleep right now seems lame.

I miss my friends terribly and I'm so lucky that they were there ready and waiting today, via phone calls, text messages, and facebook walls.  Like standing in the halls of the funeral chapel and seeing them walk in, and feeling heart pangs - not the painful kind that I always describe, but the "how did I get so lucky and how do I not fuck this up" kind.  Tomorrow night, CB is letting me sleep in her bed (in her new UWS apartment), so long as I spoon with her.

And then I want to see absolutely everyone.  And I want to read the two Chuck Palahniuk books that I have sitting in my room, and read about 10 back issues of Newsweek, and resume reading Salon.com and The Wall Street Journal.  Now I just need the motivation to do it.  I got home today and tried on a dress I bought 3 weeks ago, to see if I liked it enough to keep it.  That's a new thing this summer.  I've gotten in touch with my 'earthy' Taurus roots, and for the first time in a while, I know what I look like with no blowdrying, no makeup, no.... anything.   I wore dresses a lot.... a few even capable of being described as "short".. because you lose enough patience and it gets so effing hot that you just stop caring.  And I guess it wouldn't kill me to look like a girl for one summer of my life?  Even if it was unintentional.  I'm not sure if I have the energy now, to go back into that world.  I opened my jewelry box, saw my two David Yurman bracelets, and laughed, because I completely forgot that they existed.  And to think, when my mother asked me for a full month what I wanted as a graduation gift, I honestly answered, all of the things that I want in life aren't material. 

I keep talking on here (rambling, really) because I'm up and I wish someone else were, because I'm in a chatty mood, in an "ask me anything" mood, but most of my friends are asleep because they have work in the morning, save my law school friends, half of whom are out drinking and the other half of whom are sleeping, as well.  But hey, if you have something to ask me, you can still ask it... I'll probably be in a similar mood soon.  Because it's now 1:20.  And I just archived all of my emails marked "Bar Exam", in part because I may need them again one day in the somewhat-near future, and in part because you know I've always been an advocate of the theory that deleting something doesn't make it disappear.  It still happened.  Songs and pictures make me smile and make me cringe and make me cry but deleting it all, locking it all in a box as if it never happened - that's not life.  That's not real.  Because, without the bitter, baby, the sweet ain't as sweet.  And sometimes things that were once happy, pictures of once-happy people, become painful... but time makes them.... not so bad anymore. 

It's 1:28, and I'm watching my man Rob Thomas sing on PBS, and they just bleeped out the word "shit" in exchange for "stuff", which is lamer than lame, because I'm a big fan of properly executed expletives.  I don't have a mouth on me like a sailor by any means (well, not as far as expletives are concerned), so when I drop an F bomb, you know I mean it.  Thom Yorke means, "you're so fucking special", and Rob Thomas means, "no one else will take this shit from me." 

I am going to reacquaint myself with the art of sleeping without an alarm, without books in my bed, without waking up covered in highlighter (no, seriously).  Last night's king size bed was better, but I can handle the queen...  Tomorrow I rejoin the land of the living.  Do me a solid.... force me to come to lunch?  Buy me a drink?  Just don't be surprised when I show up thinking that a wife beater is a legitimate shirt :) Like so many of my entry tags denote.... this phase is all about making peace and moving on....

Laila tov :)

I should be reading.... about Totten Trusts, perfected security interests, collateral.  My brain hurts.  Seriously, I think it physically hurts.

I have another 15 pages to read for tonight and I just don't know if it's humanly possible.  I just want to drink a glass of wine.  Or curl up into fetal position and watch some dumb TV show.

"Wouldn't it be weird to play all those games we used to play when we were 16?", I said to LF, recently.  He texted back, "Yea, I've thought about it."  But you can't go home again.  The innocence would be gone.  Truth or dare would be serious, and kissing games wouldn't just stop at kissing.  And the funny thing is that I think I'm reminiscent of those games because I'm looking for something innocent, since I don't think I ever have been.

And I'm not sure why I keep associating being 14 and 15 with being innocent and naive when I was neither of those two things.  I was a nice girl, and a good girl, but things were so far from simple.  My dad had been cheating on my mother for months before she officially found out.  I knew.  And then it all came out on Valentine's Day.  My mother couldn't bear to look at me because I knew.  Because I looked just like him.  Because she was dying of her own unhappiness and I was going down with her.  And while other girls my age were doing all they could to fit in, I was wearing black and studying Wicca and wondering where Gd was.  Seriously, those were my thoughts.  You know you're a selfish, thoughtless little girl when your parents' bad breakup makes you question Gd.  As if Gd doesn't have better things to do.

My mother's friends call me the rebbetzin, which is ironic considering my lack of any formal Jewish education.  I think that's what it is - my insecurity has made me overcompensate.  Overcompensating by studying Near Eastern Judaic Studies at a college nicknamed Jew U, and writing a 25 page paper on Jewish Law in law school, and teaching (I'm trying, I swear) myself Hebrew.  By studying prayers.  But more than just studying prayers... immersing myself in as much theology and history as I can get my hands on.  My insecurity turned in on itself. 

After Jay passed away, I asked my Israeli buddy if he would mind putting a prayer in the Kotel for me.  He laughed, and then said, "Yea, I can make it over there".  I said, "I know, I know, you can't believe that this matters to me."  And he paused for a minute, and answered... "Dana, all of the praying, your prayers every day, your red strings, your studying Hebrew... did it help you?  Did it help?"

I don't really know how to answer.  He and I have discussed the misconception that Israelis are religious, as he often noted that organized religion is bullshit.  "You live in a place", he said, "where your neighbor will blow up your child, and then celebrate in the streets over it.  You see that every day, every single day... and you try to find Gd here."  And what can I answer?  How can I justify it?  My faith is stupid.  Having so many things you've loved in life cruelly taken from you is enough to make you lose your faith.  In Legally Blonde, Elle Woods quotes that the law is reason free from passion.  Well my adage would be.... my faith is having every indication to the contrary to not believe, and then doing it anyway.  Stupid, really.

I've had many people pick my brain on religion and theology and question how I can be okay with so many tenets of Judaism (seriously... you study a little Mishnah, a little Midrash, a little Maimonides.. suddenly you're an expert?).  I guess if I had to define myself, which I hope I never ever have to, I'd say that I'm a bad Jew but a good, faithful person.  Because I don't follow all the tenets and my record of observance is abysmal.  But how can you deny something you feel so strongly?  When you wake up in the morning and pray before you realize you're praying?  When you walk into a room bearing the casket of the one you love, how can you deny feeling like you're in the presence of something?

On the day that Jay passed, I prayed that Jay would find the peace that he was no longer able to find here on earth.  Those were the actual words I used... I like to think that Gd understands English.  And I feel the tears rolling down my face as I write this, which is odd, since I've cried only once - at the funeral.  I don't really get why all of this has happened.  I don't generally think in terms of being 'tested', because I think it takes a far greater ego than mine to think that way.  My heart is so heavy.... full of my own pain, and the pain of those around me.  I feel as if I'm absorbing it like a sponge.  And all I can do is just not pretend that I understand, and not try to, and remember to breathe.  I need to remember to breathe.  Quod me non necat me certe fortiorem facit.  If what doesn't kill me makes me stronger than I'm going to be the toughest chick you know.

I hate the word surreal, but what else do I call it?  I went back to school on Monday.  Getting up with an alarm, leaving my house at 7:15am, getting on a bus felt.... unnatural.  Awful.  Step out the front door like a ghost into a fog where no one notices the contrast of white on white.  I wonder if I look different.  If grief is written on my face.  I stand on the B train, carrying a bag that weighs a good 20 lbs, wondering if it's obvious.  Wondering if someone would let me sit if they knew.  Probably not.

Sometimes it doesn't feel all that different than when he was in the hospital those 3 months.  It's strange... what you get used to.  The house got so eerily quiet and my big Brady family became just me and Mom on the couch every night, while my family reunited in the corner room on the 17th Floor of NYU Hospital every evening.  I'm not sleeping.  I should note that I don't ordinarily sleep, and I say this not by way of complaint, because, really, I function wonderfully on little sleep.  I think most people could get by on less sleep if they trained themselves.  5 a night and I'm good to go.  But I'm waking up clammy in my meat locker of an air conditioned room.  Waking up and everything is strange and foreign.  I stare at the clock on my cable box and try to make sense of the numbers, try to interpret this strange code of dots and dashes.  If I knew Morse code - if I knew how to write out "HELP" or "SOS" - I would.

I look up and the panels on the ceiling look strange.  I don't recognize my own room in the dark.  My alarm goes off and I look around in bewilderment, trying to identify the source of the apparent noise.  Elton John continues to belt, waiting for me to hit "Dismiss", all I ever needed was the one.  Like freedom feels where wild horses run.  When stars collide like you and I, no shadows block the sun... You're all I ever needed; ooh baby, you're the one.  Funny how making a song your alarm clock makes you dislike the song. 

The mirrors are uncovered and for the first time in almost a week I see what I look like.  I don't look tan anymore, but washed out, my hair lies limp, my nails are chipped.  I pull on the same pants I wore days ago and a hanes v neck tee shirt.  I won't be a fashion plate on this day but it's not like anyone is really looking.  I don't want to stand out... I just want to do what I need to do, take this effing test, and go home.  A guy on the train smiles at  me, then starts to make conversation.  "Stay back", I want to tell him.  I'm like a puzzle.  I'm like a puzzle in every possible way you can exploit that metaphor.  You take time trying to carefully construct  because the box, well, while it gives you an idea of what you're looking for... it doesn't give instructions.  You put the big picture together.  But then it seems that all you did was look the other way and the whole thing crumbled.  Puzzles can't put themselves together.  In some ways I feel like I've been spending most of my life just waiting for someone who would put in the time to not just me together, but to stick around long enough to keep me whole, as well.  Puzzles can't put themselves together.

I had 9 hours of essay writing workshops today, and 7 hours of practice-testing goodness tomorrow.  Nothing is making me feel smarter.. in fact, I think I'm getting dumber.  The more I study, the less I realize I know, and everyone's faith in me, believe it or not, makes me feel like I'll feel that much dumber, that much worse if I don't pass. 

All things must pass
All things must pass away
All things must pass
None of life's strings can last
So, I must be on my way
And face another day

Now the darkness only stays the night time
In the morning it will fade away
Daylight is good at arriving at the right time
It's not always going to be this grey

All things must pass
All things must pass away

Not sure really where to start.  I feel like most of the stuff I write has a cohesiveness to it; a theme.  I try to draw it all together.  Make it flow more like a narrative and less like a stream of consciousness journal entry.  Sorry... you're getting this or nothing.  This is going to be one of those entries that is solely for me.  All catharsis.  In fact, it may be barely legible and I make no apologies.  I am hiding - both literally, from the well-meaning people in my home, and figuratively. 

These past 3 days lasted a month, at least.  It couldn't possibly have been 5 days ago when I came home from DC, to find Jay watching Casablanca with my mother.  When I found that I had received my ticket to the New Jersey bar exam in the mail.  Since Jay offered to drive me.  "I have it taken care of", I said to him, knowing that, while he was able to drive certain distances, he most certainly couldn't drive me to New Jersey.  And then I was shushed out of the room, because Casablanca was on, and he was watching it for a 400th time.  Jay went to visit his friends at his ambulance corps that night and I must have been asleep when he came home.  That was the last conversation we ever had.

Jay passed away sometime between Monday morning and Tuesday night.  I can't go into details.  In part because I don't know many and in part because I physically feel like I can't.  Everything feels unbelievably fucking strange.  If you want cliches, I'll tell you it feels surreal.  I hate that cliches diminish the authenticity of something.  That because many people react in a certain way, it makes your own personal reaction seem less brutal, less viable, because others have gone through it, felt the same way.

I reacted differently than most members of my family.  I didn't cry.  Didn't cry upon seeing him that first time.  Didn't cry when on the phone with medical examiners.  Didn't cry when I notified my friends on the phone.  Didn't cry when writing emails.  Didn't cry when I picked out the casket.  Didn't cry when we filled out the death certificate.  Didn't cry when I took out the outfit I would wear to his services; nor the outfit he would wear.  I'm not sure what I am... you get to choose.  I'm either some kind of stoic who just handles her grief differently, privately, internally - or I'm a monster.  I think I've convinced myself of the former over and over again.... that I'm just not that 'drop to her knees and wail' type.  There are probably only two people outside of my family who have ever really seen me cry.  They were boyfriends.  I'd take it back if I could.

I cried when we said our final farewells before the casket was closed.  Cried when we put his glasses on his face because, well, he looked just like him.  I know, I sound ridiculous.  But at the risk of sounding ridiculous, I expected him to look scary, or at least - well - dead.  He looked like a sleeping Jay, wearing his glasses, a brown Hugo Boss suit that we bought last year, with his volunteer ambulance patches.  We put his police radio in there with him.  Pictures.  My brother buried the paper granting Jay full custody.  One wonders how the heart can feel so full and so empty simultaneously.  And I cried all over those pictures of him that we put up on the bulletin board. 

We took the smaller room.  Our fear was that if we took the big room, it would be a big empty room.  And damn, we needed the big room.  Needed a room that held 400 people.  His coworkers came by bus.  My friends were there.  His entire ambulance crew, who also gave us a police escort to the cemetery. 

I'd like to write something deep and thought provoking and touching here about life and death and the hidden purpose.  I can't do that.  I don't have any answers.  I don't know anything about karma or prayer or God.  I don't understand why good people are punished and 'bad' people seemingly skate through life.  Theodicy - is that what it's called?  How can you reconcile bad things in the world, evil in the presence of a benevolent god?

I'm hiding from the strangers in my home who think that this is the time to discuss my school rank and job prospects for next year.  Hiding from the sanctimonious relative who felt the need to discipline my brother for telling me in a joking voice, "shut up", before letting her child drink vodka.  Before allowing her child to run around the room laying claims to an entire cake.  I'm hiding from the people who felt the need to turn the death of my father into gossip fodder, and bring the poison into the funeral chapel.  I'm hiding from reality.  Reality is the bar exam in 2 and a half weeks.  Reality is a dirty house.  Reality is that my mother's husband is dead, and I lost another father.  Reality is that Jay survived 3 months in the hospital with a deadly disease only to die after he came home. 

In the past 2 days I have seen almost every single person I care about.  In the flesh.  And the silly little thought I keep having is that it's amazing that I have such wonderful friends, and it's a blessing that I have such incredible people around me, because I'm pretty damn anti-social.  I'm hiding when I should be sitting shiva.  Because there's only so much fake smiling I can do.  Only so many times I can answer, "How are you?".  How should I be?  I just put my father in the ground.  God giveth life, and God taketh away.  I don't want to be hugged.  I don't want to be comforted.  I just want to be left alone.  How can someone that fucked up have such amazing friends?

The day that Jay entered the hospital - February 12, 2008 - was the last time that I had changed my daily calendar, and I recall writing that it felt like life stopped on that day.  I slept in my mother's bed last night.  In the bed that she shared with the great love of her life.  The calendar was still on July 8.  Life literally stops.

Everything feels inexplicably different now.  I feel as if I can't enjoy sunshine.  In high school I dressed in black.  Recently, I've taken to dyeing my hair black.  Always loved black nail polish.  And my joke was always that I liked things black, like my soul.  People generally see me as friendly and happy and outgoing, but there is a part of me that feels so connected to a darker side.  Like a tortured artist, pain brings out something in me.  An acute sensitivity - a certain awareness.  I feel as if I can't enjoy sunshine.   I curl up into the darkness of pain like a good friend or a novel and settle in.  It's familiar, and it is when I feel most alive.  Ironically.

And how is it possible to just want my own little corner in the world, to just want some stillness, some quiet, some space, in the midst of losing the ones I love and acknowledging how the amazing people in my life?

I hurt myself today
to see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
the only thing that's real
the needle tears a hole
the old familiar sting
try to kill it all away
but I remember everything

what have I become?
my sweetest friend
everyone I know
goes away in the end
and you could have it all
my empire of dirt

I will let you down
I will make you hurt

I wear this crown of thorns
upon my liar's chair
full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
beneath the stains of time
the feelings disappear
you are someone else
I am still right here

if I could start again
a million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way

I'm definitely caught up inside my head, lately.  Studying for the bar is the most selfish and self-destructive thing that you can do.  You spend almost every minute to yourself, by yourself, making yourself miserable.  All I do is study, watch TV, work out, and cling to some semblance of sleep.  I do flash cards on the way in to school; get to read my book on the way back.  Lately I've been reading Moose, by Stephanie Klein, whose blog I read religiously.  That and, well, I don't really have the mental capacity to absorb anything 'heavy'.  Like that episode of Married with Children, where Kelly loses one fact every time she gains another.  As a memoir of fat camp, I started off reading it and and not at all being able to relate.  I never went to sleep away camp.  I was very underweight and definitely wasn't on a diet.  I wasn't a spoiled kid from Long Island.  I didn't have a teen boy worshiping me and telling me how much he loved me; begging for forgiveness when he did something wrong.  My "love life" was more along the lines of having a crush on Lonny for about 10 minutes; until he dashed my 13 year old hopes and dreams.

But I'm enjoying reading it, and realizing how much of this stuff really does resonate with everyone.  Enjoying getting back into my old head, and enjoying the fact that it's just a visit and not a permanent vacation.  If I think long and hard, I will remember that, while Stephanie Klein was called Moose because she had a weight problem, I was called another name making fun of my chest.. ok, lack thereof.  Irony, I know.  I cried when I needed braces, and survived bangs, and weighing 88lbs at 5'3".  Although I remember hitting 100lbs and thinking I was fat.  If I think long and hard, I will remember lighting candles in the dark and singing Radiohead and crying while my father cheated on my mother and I buried the secret of my hidden knowledge.  I remember reading about paganism (mind the Wiccan law you should; three times bad and three times good) because I couldn't quite figure out where G-d was.  I remember summers at my beach club - my equivalent of summer camp - being the runt; the one who was 1-3 years younger than everyone else.  The one who was treated like a little kid.  There were only about 4 girls in our group, and a whole bunch of guys.  I think the guys would have rather made out with each other than kissed me.  We congregated in each others' basements, playing 'random' kissing games, which really weren't random at all.  Watched movies on rainy days; walked to Manhattan Beach or to the shopping center to buy overpriced candles and tee-shirts bearing Hello Kitty, herself.  Daniela, whom I now run into on the train, as she worked down the block from me, used to straighten my hair in the pool club locker room.  She was a tiny cheerleader type who was an actual cheerleader, and the boys I liked always liked her.  She was seldom interested.  It's ten years later and she still can't quite get over her penchant for bad boys, Italian boys, anything but Jewish boys.  Some old habits die hard.

I went through all of my phases.  Black nailpolish.  Combat boots.  Pentagrams.  Blue nailpolish.  Ball chain necklaces.  Enormous jeans.  Chains on my wallet.  Head flipped over in my sink while DD dyed the tips of my hair pink with Manic Panic cotton candy.  Eyebrow ring.  Tragus piercing.  10 holes in my ears in all.  Looking for something.  Getting some strange kind of pleasure out of the pain.  If there were another body part that I wanted pierced, I'd be on top of that.  I still get a strange pleasure out of the pain.  I often have physical therapists, doctors and dentists tell me that I need to vocalize the pain because they need to know about it.  That I shouldn't grin and bear it.  And I laugh, and want to say, have you just met me?  Vocalize the pain?  Don't just grin and bear it?  Have you just met me?  Pain is pain and baby, I love it - internalize it - all.

FD is the first boy who made me shed real tears.  During the summer of 1997, love smelled like Claiborne Sport.  It looked like a driving range.  It wore backwards caps and had its keys on a Brine keychain, and called me Dane but spelled it Dan.  Love knew all the words to every song.  Love had its own car.  Love was going to Italy towards the middle of the summer.  Love was starting NYU in the fall.  Enter: heartbreak. 

I remember lessons my mother told me.  I remember wanting to 'become a woman' already, and my mom telling me that it might not happen until I weighed 100lbs.  Her telling me that, in the future, I'd wax reminiscent for the days when I didn't have 'the curse' (ok, she never said 'the curse'), when I weighed less than 100lbs.  When I could eat anything that I wanted and burn it off before it hit my stomach.  I remember the misery of junior high.  Of girls so mean that I was afraid to walk home from school alone.  Girls so mean that I sat in class creating make-shift calendars on my college-ruled looseleaf paper, counting down the days I had left until the end of school.  It would be a few years before I'd be sitting at work on a summer's day, frantically creating the same make-shift calendar, but counting backwards instead of forwards.  Thinking baby names.  My mother was right - it was simpler when I weighed under 100lbs and wasn't a 'woman' yet.

She also taught me that, as mean as the girls are, that that part was just a phase, and it would get better.  And it did.  She told me that the worst pain I'd experience in life... worse than mean girls, worse than cramps, worse than acne, worse than boys making fun of me in slambooks - was heartbreak.  By then I was already an ice princess.  Had already had a slew of "boyfriends" - who took me to the 'prom', bought me the cassette single of Boyz II Men's "On Bended Knee."  Love, it wasn't.  Not the kind of love Stephanie Klein describes, where the guy wrote the girl love songs, sang to her and just begged her to stick around.  I felt pretty indestructible in that department, if not in any other realm of my life, and I couldn't imagine ever caring about a guy longer than the time it took me to "break up" with him.  But even Ice Princesses know from heartache.  Maybe it's what makes them that way in the first place.

I think my mom wanted me to join BBYO to help cope with the divorce.  Because my sister was in it.  To meet some nice kids.  To get out of the house, out of the dark, out of my black clothing, out of my room.  And if I rediscovered G-d in the process, that wouldn't hurt, either.  Some call it a youth group.  Some a sorority.  Some a cult.  We had elaborate meetings, rules, and rituals.  Wore pins and lit candles.  Were ultra exclusive.  Ultra bitchy.  Indulged in rumors about who had an eating disorder, who gave head on the back of the bus on the way up to convention, and who was adopted and not even really Jewish.  But my awkwardness somehow translated differently there.  I wasn't the skinny girl with braces who was made fun of for being flatchested.  I was.... the new girl.  With the eyebrow ring.  No one knew me, but my 'bad ass'ness made me stand out from the sea of Jewish-girl faces.  Coolness was measured empirically in BBYO, in bi-yearly conventions where we voted sweetest BBG and hottest AZA.  My first BBYO hookup, the night of the infamous "blow job incident" (which, um, didn't involve me), was with a guy who had been voted hottest AZA, unbeknownst to me.  I didn't know.  I wasn't even trying.  I was duped.  He claimed that he forgot his blanket and pillow and stole mine.  Then kindly told me he'd let me share it.  Last summer, almost 10 years later, he'd stare at me in a bar and say, "I know you.  How do I know you?"

But it meant something.  It was like winning the hand of poker; gaining more chips.  I learned about the girl crush back then.  About admiring and wanting to be like other girls, and other girls wanting to be like me.  Eyebrow ring girl.  And I got into a habit of collecting boys like I collected Jerome Russell body glitter from Contempo Casuals.  This isn't one of those stories that turns into me being a poor divorce-destroyed girl who turned to sex for love.  Nope.  I maintained my virtue all through HS (ew, who says virtue?).  But kisses came for free, and didn't draw up analogies about cows and milk.  Guys became goals and kissing them was like acquiring something new and trendy.  My take on guys would change slightly but not drastically.  I did and still do look at guys as just another accomplishment, to some extent, believing that, really, I could get any guy if I just tried hard enough and wanted it badly enough.  Persevered.  For the most of my life, it's worked.

I don't have anything showing pierced, and am ready to become a lawyer.  But I still get really cold and clam up when it comes to guys.  Not a huggy, a touchy-feely, a cuddly type, until someone gets past the surface.  And then I'm 16 again, crying to my friends and eating raw cookie dough, when I get hurt.  And we put on 90s music and watch stupid 90s chick flicks.  Gonna start a revolution from my bed.  Cause you said the brains I had went to my head.  Step outside, summertime's in bloom.  And play that game.  I wish I had your little legs.  I wish I had your boobs.  Look how high your ass is.   Stop complaining, you have such a freaking flat stomach.  It's what girls do. 

Got bruises on my heart, and sometimes I get dark.  There's a lot I'm leaving out.  Leaving out the entirety of my parents' divorce.  Of feeling really worthless, and crying out for attention, and my mom not being able to look at me because I reminded her so much of my father.  Of my sister being able to disappear to college.  Of having trust issues with every guy I'd date because I had a father who left.  Of remembering with envy a time when I was skinny.  Formally introducing myself to the weight struggle - filling out a Hi, My Name Is sticker, though the issue would know me by name by the time I was in college.  I still cry in the shower, listen to Radiohead, and Keane, and other wrist slitting music, light my Primal Elements or Yankee Candles and ruminate.  But that's not what this is about.  This is just me reminiscing about how sweet life was when it was simpler, even if it never really was.

Hello, old friend.  I know I've been bad, but if it's any consolation, I've been awful at answering phone calls (ok, I'm always awful at answering phone calls) and emails, also.  And I am an email-answering pro.  That and, well, I generally feel like I'm talking to myself here.  But that's okay.

Went out to dinner with a friend tonight.  She's dating a much younger guy, and the topic of one of our friends came up.  She said, "he's younger than me, and doesn't have money, or really anything else like that to offer me... my motives are clear, what I'm in it for."  She was asking me if I thought our friend had 'other' motives.  She asked if I thought she loved him.  And I honestly spoke the truth..... yes, I think she loves him, and he loves her, and one who throws around words might even throw around the word "co-dependency".  But, while I think she does love him, that doesn't mean that she's not also in it for the perks.  Like any good job, it offers stability, insurance, bragging rights, vacation time, and room for growth.  A plus one.  Great places to go, gifts on birthdays and all the important holidays.  The ability to use the word "we" in sentences.  It's caché.  It just is.

My mother and I sat on the couch and talked for a while - something we haven't done in, well, a while.  It was a state of the unions address - me filling my mother in on the details of my friends' relationships.  We discussed what we thought were red flags, who we had thought were on the right path but now seemed... a little off.  The people we thought just.... might not make a perfect couple in the end.  "Not much of this sounds healthy", my mother would comment to me.  "Are girls that hungry?  That love-needy?  That afraid to be single?"

"As much as I enjoy being in a relationship", I said to my mother, "part of me really doesn't like who I become in relationships."  "Needy.  Subservient," my mother answered.  "No, not that bad!"  "Yes, Dana.  Yes."  We discussed the fact that, in the past 3 years, there was only one guy whom I dated, around whom I was really myself - unaltered.  I didn't kowtow, didn't play meek, didn't try to make myself a smaller, less obtrusive person.  One person.  In 3 years.  My mother counted my relationships off on her fingers, the way a girl recounts the books she read this summer, or someone lists the shows they've seen on Broadway.  "Dana, that was abuse.  It was mental abuse," she said about a boyfriend.  "And you let it happen.  You just... you let it happen.  And I think watching you let it might have even been worse than what you were going through.  Maybe he will become a great husband and father.  Maybe next year.  Maybe not for a while."  "I know," I answered.  "And I fear I will never again be the person that I was before that.  A part of me was damaged - broken - and I will never get it back.  I fear that.  For the first time - ever - I understood why women stay with men who hit them.  That's how love can fuck you up."

She went through the list.  "I really didn't know [that one], but I do know that you liked him... something was there.  But you've always had the guys who thought you were incredible... they just weren't necessarily what you wanted."  I told her my thoughts... that men really ARE from Mars, and women from Venus.  That sometimes, when I speak to guys, I feel like I'm speaking in Greek, and I have to keep trying a different dialect in the hopes of connecting with their mother tongue in a way that didn't involve panties.  And it's then - THEN - that I end up in tears, rolled up in a ball, taking it all back, apologizing, giving up, because it's just too damn hard.  Too damn hard.  It's different with girls.  We finish each other's sentences.  One word evokes laughter and recognition.  Guys must think we're nuts.  But we're on a wavelength. 

"I'm single", my Israeli friend said to me a few days ago.  "So if you were planning a trip to Israel, now is a great time," he continued.  "But I feel really horrible, and I didn't expect to... I'm usually good at blocking out my emotions."  For an Israeli guy, he sure can express himself well in English.  And yes, apparently even on the other end of the world, the guys are just as screwed up :).  "It's weird."  "Weird?  To be upset about breaking up with someone you like?  You like her, why is that weird?"  "I love her..", he answered.  "But it's not that easy."  This is the part where the play pauses and the narrator addresses the audience.  I have been in love.  Once, maybe more (I'm eluding both you and myself, as I don't actually know the answer that that).  Two guys have told me they loved me while in the confines of the relationship.  One said it when I was a little too young to have the whole 'love' thing nailed down.  The other said it while I was breaking up with him.  And two after the fact.  One said it 'under coercion'.  So, to wit: I have been in love, and I have loved, but I have never been loved by someone I loved.  How do you like them apples.  But I digress.

"It seems like you have half the battle fought and won," I said to him, "so maybe don't give up so easily."  I couldn't really tell him that hearing a guy talk about a girl in words of, "I don't 'like' her, I love her..." wrenched at something that I didn't realize needed fixing.  "But it's not that simple."  He admitted that he wasn't sure he wanted to be with just one girl.  That he wasn't afraid of commitment, so much as he wasn't sure if he wanted it at all, at least for the time being.  Wife, kids.... not now, anyway.  When did it get so hard? 

I wish this post had more direction, less rambling.  Dubya doesn't remember if he ever did coke.  Bill did NOT have sexual relations with that woman (it was a phantom stain on her blue dress).  A guy I dated - the last guy I cared about - doesn't remember why we stopped dating.  The state of the unions... mine, and those around me, are a cause for concern. 

i sent you a card - because it assuages my guilt; helps me sleep better at night.
like on your birthday, you 'forgot' to acknowledge it.

your manners are lacking.
i'm a phony.

never thought i'd walk away from you - i did
but it's a false sense of accomplishment every time i quit
anyone can see my every flaw - it isn't hard
anyone can say they're above this all

I woke up at 5am after having a dream about someone I'd rather not have a dream about.  And about school.  I was annoyed, thought, "well, at least the dream wasn't about X (another person I don't wish to dream about), just to promptly fall back to sleep and dream about.... you got it.... X.  I woke up at 6, annoyed, a) that my brain is such a fucking masochist and b) annoyed at the self-fulfilling prophecy.  I made the dream happen.  And I was annoyed that X was revealing something potentially hurtful in the dream, and I woke up before I got to fully realize it.

I was afraid to go back to sleep, so I checked my email.  "You up, babe?", my Israeli asked.  It was around 1pm over there.  We talked for a little bit, he made me feel less like jabbing a pen into my eye, and he laughed at my ability to control my dreams and remember them. 

Life is a very limited group of emotions right now.... I feel tired, I feel dumb, I feel annoyed.  There is nothing to look forward to.  There is a lot that I'm dreading.  I'm not used to this.  I can't say I'm not used to the uncertainty, but I suppose I'm not used to sitting back and letting it happen with little interference on my part.  In the past 6 months I haven't gotten used to it.  Heck, in the past 3 years I haven't gotten used to it.

My friend wrote me an email the other day - the kind of email you print and keep in your wallet, to look at when your world gets dark.  An excerpt:

Dana Dear,

I'm so sad to see you go D, it could never be the same here without you... I'll miss our frequent 'heart to hearts' (remember:  if you ever need to chat, you know you have an ear in Brooklyn), the mid morning/late afternoon musical stylings of DFet and the Les Mis crew (oh how I've grown to love Jean Valjean and Javert)... sigh... I might have to download a few songs from the soundtrack just to feel at ease at the office...  don't you fret... And last but not least, I will (in a nutshell) miss your presence... 'the Earth Creature' that is somehow connected to my fluid nature, my astrological opposite  =o)

Don't be a stranger and cuidate! (spanish lesson #14 - It means takes care of yourself.... pronounced 'Quee Dah Tay')

Love,
[    ]

When I'm feeling totally blah, emails like that totally help.  I've inspired 4 people to start a blog, only one of whom has really followed through with it.  It's scary stuff, putting your intimate thoughts out there for people to read.  But maybe it's worse when you don't have anything scandalous to say.  When you feel.... blah.  Nothing thought provoking.  Nothing intelligent, or witty, or humorous.  Because, to be honest, other than being scared out of my wits, I'm not feeling anything too strongly.

I jogged for the first time this weekend since I double bursitis-ized my hips (yea, I made bursitis into a verb).  Well, really, I did a program where you walk on 4MPH for a few minutes, then jog on 5MPH/5 incline for a minute and a half, then back to 4, etc.  I decided to take it easy yesterday, to not push it, since I worked out Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  And when I needed a study break, I laughed, and thought... do I have any stress relievers that AREN'T self destructive?  Too much working out, spending money, toxic guys, indulgent sugary foods..... The result was that I ended up putting U2's "Original of the Species" on my iTunes, from my Brit playlist (Coldplay, U2, Keane), and sang at the top of my lungs.  Mmmm, how do ya spell catharsis :)  I feel like it probably has the same calming effect even if you can't sing.  But I got it out of me a little bit, had the same thoughts as I always do.  I want "All I Want is You" (U2) to be my wedding song.  "A Message" (Coldplay) is the most lovely, desperate love song.  "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" (U2) makes me think of Big K.  The entirety of Keane's Under the Iron Sea makes me think of "that" break up... especially "Broken Toy" and "Try Again".  I am incapable of listening to Try Again without those words resonating, over and over.  What I was isn't what I am.  I'd change back, but I don't know if I can.  Still I'll try - try again, try again.  Baby I die every night, every time.  Seeing U2 and Keane at MSG on a dark and stormy night, before seeing Big K.  Two days before my first interaction with the ex boy.  Almost two years later, standing in Central Park watching Keane play. 

I'd love to have time to read, but I'm honestly not sure if it will happen.  I just bought more Chuck Palahniuk. Since I'm not likely to take up boxing or classical piano again just yet, it looks like Chuck P and Brit rockers may be my only respite......

I realized as I went to get into the shower this morning - to get ready for my graduation - that my calendar was still on May.  Time to turn my picture calendar, from the pic of my family with Edward James Olmos, to the picture of Erica and I in Astoria last summer.  Another month.  Another memory.  Another day.  Another milestone. 

At the time, law school felt like it would never end, and I wasn't sure I'd see it through.  But in retrospect, looking back, it feels like it went by at a scary pace.  I feel like I was just receiving my bachelor's in history.  And I can recall how bored I was during my high school graduation.

But I need a clean break.  I wish I lived closer to the city.... cause, dammit, I need to not be in school anymore.  I need a clean break from the school and everything about it.  I need to move on.  I acted out of character for myself, and as proud as I am at myself for being ballsy, I can't say that I have the incentive to ever do it again.  Doing it immediately made me feel better - really - but the feeling wore off.  The result is that I feel somewhat rejected.

I just need to move on from BLS, from people and things, from memories ancient and recent.  I need to refocus my energy.   I'm a freaking juris doctor, dammit.  A doctor of the law. 

On Memorial Day my family had a barbecue and invited a few couples.  I was there, too, along with my friend DD.  Aside from the questions I was expecting, such as EVERY person there asking my mother what the deal was between me and DD, one of the guys commented to my mother, "Dana is so fantastic.  Such a personality, such a sense of humor on that girl."  My mother reported this to me, and I thought about it.  Who actually gets to see that?  My girlfriends have seen me laugh until I cried and until I wheezed, gasping for breath.  They see my sarcastic, witty, dry humor...... whereas guys get to see my self-deprecating humor.  One is a character trait, the other a defense mechanism.  My friends see the me who sings, and gets passionate over politics, and sends out several page articles imploring others to at least 'skim'.  And guys - well, guys, DAMMIT, just see whatever I think they want to see in me.  When did I decide that my personality wasn't good enough?  And how are these guys remotely worth my altering it in any way?

In the past 24 hours I've received countless text messages, emails, cards, and phone calls from my friends wishing me kind sentiments for my graduation.  Except sometimes the kind sentiments come in the form of, "DDDDDDDDDDDD!  You're a JD!".  Unabashed friend support. 

THAT is what matters in my life.  My family, each and every one of whom was at my graduation today.  My career.  The bar.  My friends who make me laugh until I cry.  All of the ghosts of my past... negative memories, past relationships, insecurities that are struggling for air..... they need to all just go hit the road.  They're not part of the next chapter. 

Far too much bar review in my life.  Far too little blog. 
Things that make you go "hmmm":

Taurus, try not to worry too much about whether or not you're in the right place at the right time -- all your plans ought to work out right without any serious intervention. You may feel a bit tired later on.

Taurus, you may be somewhat uncertain about which way to turn professionally, for your dreams seem real but unattainable.  You could even talk yourself into a mild depression as you add up all the things you want, yet do not have in your present life.  Don't be so hard on yourself or others now; being realistic is important but pessimism at this time serves no purpose at all.

My life feels like a movie sometimes.  I had an event happen recently that caused several people to say to me, "that doesn't happen in real life - that sounds like a TV show!".  I think another part of it is the soundtrack issue... listening to music pretty much every minute of your life makes it easy to sometimes feel like you're living in a movie, and the music is the soundtrack to your life.

Standing on the train today, thinking, watching life go by.  I've got my heart set on anywhere but here.  Watching my life go by?  Not so sure.  There are so very many changes going on in my life.... ending 3 years of law school and approximately 20 years of formal education.  2 years at my job.  A family that is almost unrecognizable.  And the thing is, I'm feeling like everything is out of my control, all a matter of hoping, and waiting, and star alignment and fate.... but I think I need a different attitude.  Because you know what?  Right now, my life is up to the part of the movie where they show a montage of events... like in Rent.  Just a sequence of events and circumstances with little detail to convey a message of 'change' or 'despair' or what have you.  It's all starting to blur and I'm losing perspective.  I think I'm moving but I go nowhere.

I live my life too carefully.  Dot i's.  Cross t's.  The new intern in my office joked today that I'm the type to read every page my teacher assigns.  To read a review book cover to cover.  I don't really think he was saying it in the 'admiration' kind of way.  He was more mocking it.  Mocking a life devoted to rules and authority,  fitting in happiness and pleasure if there's time.  Always delaying it.  Tying up my happiness in achieving my goals.  When I'm thin, I'll be happy.  When I graduate, I'll be happy.  When I pass the bar, I'll be happy.  I oftentimes don't say what I feel, negative and positive.  I concern myself with propriety, with what one just doesn't say, with always doing the right thing.  The consequence is that I always come last.  Put my emotions last, my frustrations last, my wants, my best interest last. 

My heart last.  My heart always last.  They're trying to come back - all my senses push.  I swallow emotions all the damn time.  Because I'm too scared to fess up.  Because I don't think it would be right.  Because I'm afraid of rejection.  Because I'm a wimp. 

And I'm standing down.  So I'm trying it.  Trying to speak up when things upset me.  Trying to be less of a wimp when it comes to my heart.  And people will get mad at me.  There will be consequences.  I will make an ass of myself.  But I'm trying.  And hopefully some of it will be good.  If you've already seen this movie, can you tell me how it ends?

I've always been a person easily triggered, but lately EVERYTHING is triggering me.  Maybe I'm pregnant.  Probably not.  My heart is panging here, there, and everywhere, and I do not generally have a heart that pangs.  Songs have always been the most obvious trigger.  Had to walk out of a room when a song was playing a day ago.  Damn heart pangs. 

I was walking through the pharmacy the other day waiting for my prescription to be ready when the Doobie Brothers' "Listen to the Music" came on.  Oh, we got to let the music play.  One of the greatest gifts my parents gave me was the gift of music.  It's how I loved John Lennon while still young enough to think his name was John Lemon.  Why I was young enough to sing, "Every time you go away, you take a piece of meat with you."  I'm pretty sure that dads - all dads - like the same kind of music.  Or maybe just my two dads.  My father listened to a lot of music I couldn't stand (while I respected much of it) - Southern, shit-kickin' rock.  Lynrd Skynrd; Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; John Fogerty.  Dad #2 liked pretty much the same music as dad #1, and this Doobie Brothers song is just one of those songs that makes me think of him readily.  And the song played.  Gotta get a message.  Get it on through.  And I stood there and stared while the girl who worked in the pharmacy - chubby, with long, fake Brooklyn nails and a sorority tee shirt that wasn't exactly flattering - repeatedly mispronounced my name.

On the way home from school today - bar class.  Past the ambulance where Jay worked for 30 years of his life.  Where he was captain.  His best friends.  Big, hulking men who cried at his bedside.  Remembered the excitement over the ambulance's anniversary.  Jay's excitement at planning the gala; at designing the new ambulances ("the truck" or "the bus").  Heart pangs.  I wish I could get into his head.  And I don't understand all the things you've seen.  And you don't wanna look much closer, cause you're afraid to find out all this hope you had sent into the sky by now had crashed... and it did. 

Recently my mother asked me what I wanted for graduation.  The crazy part?  Of all of the things I want in the world - everything I want in life (and there are a lot)- none of them are material.  How do you like them apples - how's that for deep?