there will always be passions.

I'm a passionate person. More often than not, I am feeding one of my passions, as they're often hungry. Painting. Writing. The outdoors. Running. Connecting with someone. Nurturing my dog. Eating an entire quart of ice cream. Most of these passions fulfill me somehow and prove to be inherently good. However, I have caught myself, on more than ten occasions, feeling great zest and direction towards something, when maybe I should have laid down and taken a nap. Examples of these instances include shopping trips that should have been avoided, bones that did not need to be picked and crusades in the name of the betterment of all when really they were just egotistical power trips to have my voice be heard. I am human and can laugh off most of my manic mishaps.

But lately, just lately, I'm wondering where my passion to change the dynamic of my family and my mother fits in to all this. The poetry I posted a few weeks back was written on the heels of therapy sessions that I've begun to partake in. This therapy has been unlike any other that I've experienced in the way that there's no pretense. I'm going to be gut honest here. And in thinking about the words I'm about to write my eyes are beginning to well up. It has dawned on me lately that I am alive. And I've never thought about it like this: there's gotta be a purpose to this mysterious thing we call life. And I don't want to waste one more day dragging around the heavy bags that I've settled for carrying. I want to be the best version of myself someday.

This therapy has begun to help me chip away at the junk that helps my serenity hide from me. And it hurts but its good.

It also provokes unresolved feelings of whackness from my childhood. So I wrote a poem. And then it dawned on me that in 26 years of existence, not much has changed since the days I described. And that pissed me off.

I want change for her. And us. And for everyone I love to chip away at their junk together so we can have joint serenity. That's a tall order. I'm well aware. But don't knock me for trying.

I think about the times my roommate from college would say to me, "You have a drinking problem. You also have so much potential. If you would stop drinking, you could reach it." My response was at first warm. She was right! What was I doing? But that warmth was quickly engulfed by cold and darkness. The fast life had much too strong of a hold on me then.

But not one week goes by where she doesn't cross my mind. She somehow reached the depths of my -soul- that were crying out for help to change. She spoke the truth to them. And one day her words reached me, along with the words of many others and words of my innermost self that brought me to the place I needed the most.

So, perhaps my passion and dramatic obsession with helping my family falls on ears that pretend to be deaf. But I know deep down they hear me. And I'll die trying to inspire change. Because I am so thankful for those who were unafraid to tell me that I had so much more to me than what I was settling for.

the jewelry box

There's this pain
It hides in the four corners of my jewelry box
The box you gave me, using that great taste you have
It's smooth and shiny, beaded and full of color
Colors like gold and mauve and sand
Colors that make you feel home
But what is home to me?
Scratches and hiding and wanting to shrink
Shrink down to the size of an earring
An earring that fits in my jewelry box

And we all try in our own way
Allowing you to be the tornado
Waiting for those days when you're free
Free from the storm that lives inside you
Free from the resentment you feel because you birthed us

But when that resentment comes to life
It brings with it words
Words that tell us we should reverse our growth
Become a child, then an infant, a newborn
Until we are nothing more than a zygote, a seed
A seed given to you by our father

Speaking of father
Where was he?
While you wished us dead
Pushed us down
Stopped our breathing

Probably flying over Cleveland in an aisle seat
Secretly folding his hands in prayer
Asking that you let us be in his absence

Rarely did this happen

And today
Today while I check locked doors
And bathroom lights
And count my moves
I remember the nights I heard you
Heard you checking our doors repeatedly
Cleaning our kitchen in the darkness of 3 am
Suffering inside
Showing it through the bleeding wounds on your body
I wonder
How similar we are

Do you worry the way I do?
I would listen if you wanted me to
But what I won't, cannot and will not do
Is what my father asks
For me to let it go
Keep quiet
Appease you

I refuse
I see my own flesh and blood
In the form of a thirteen year old baby
With the fire in her eyes
That I recognize
That same fire that makes you kick down doors and pull out hair
If I can help it
I will stop it
Stop you

From giving her the pain
The pain that hides
In the four corners of my jewelry box

This too shall pass, but until it does...

If I'm going to get down to the heart of matters, I must admit that my blog tone is mostly one of emotional turmoil. This has been my release over the past 8 months. Nursing the loss of a job, coping with the loss of a live-in relationship, learning how to deal with anxiety and fear, looking at some family stuff and then every once in a while being goofy and fun, letting my hair hang down and letting other people really see what goes on in this mind of mine. As I've said time and time again, I have tried to remember always to write for myself, no matter what the outcome. And since writing has always saved me during times of confusion, my writing is often chaotic and negative-sounding.

Today, however, I'm writing for a different reason. Today I am excited my friends. I am joyous. I feel grateful.

I am sitting at work (oops) and finishing various projects. I am smiling at those who are walking by me, I am making faces at one of my friends who is giving a presentation in the conference room next to me. And it dawns on me. I am beginning to evolve. Into someone that I sometimes do not recognize. I have become part of a company. I have found pride in my work (something I never thought was possible in the corporate world). I have been asked many times where I'd like to go here at this company. I have never been given that type of opportunity before. "Adia, where do YOU SEE YOURSELF. Let us know." Really?? That's a gift.

In my personal life, I have begun to truly adore someone and in adoring them I am accepting their strangeness rather than trying to control them and mold them into who I want them to be. I am looking forward to the future.

I just moved to a fantastic neighborhood and I can't tell you how excited I am for the weekend to roll around just because I feel like there are so many possibilities for me, so many places that I can choose to go. I am not pigeon-holed. I have watched my Madeline come into her own since we've moved. She's stable, she's comfortable, she's happy. I've written here time and time again that my dog is like my daughter, so the pride I have in seeing her flourish is unexplainable and misunderstood to anyone that does not have a close relationship with their dog or does not have a dog at all.

I have begun to feel okay with accepting my anxiety and my fears as part of me and I am trying to take action to make myself better. I do gloat and stay stagnant when I'm suffering because sometimes I feel so paralyzed by it. That's when I need to take the bull by the horns and fight back. And I have. And I've asked others for help. I keep my fingers crossed in saying that I pray that I'm reaching the light at the end of the tunnel with these panic attacks.

Last but not least, I found a picture of my father and my little sister on my computer last night. I have a MacBook and there's an application called "Photo Booth" where you can take pictures of yourself and add distorted layers to them. The photo of my sister and father was so ridiculously hilarious that I wanted to go through the screen and hug them right then and there. They used the "stretch" effect and my Dad's face looked like the shape of a building block. My sister's eye was like a fish eye, vertically longer than it was wide. They took this picture the day the entire family showed up to help me move to my new place, supporting this change they all knew I needed. I felt so freaking great; there was a time when no one would have wanted to come around me because I was not very nice to be around. That's not the case anymore. And it's fantastic.

The sad thing is, but also the realistic thing is, this too shall pass. This burst of positivity and intense gratitude will slowly dissipate. But while it's here, to me it's worth documenting.

Returning to a blank page.

Oh how I have longed to make a grand comeback. The negligence is shameful. I visit my blog page almost everyday and stare at the last post - song lyrics. A lazy post, one that had personal meaning but a meaning that I refused to share because it is something that is still new and fresh and hasn't yet hit the airwaves. But it's time. Time to start writing again, sharing and dramatizing like I used to. It hasn't felt good not to let it all out.

But I've been busy. I have a job now. I live in the city now, right next to the Art Museum. I have Kelly Drive now, where my dog and I spend tons of time walking along the river. I have a roommate now, whom I spend hours chatting with. I did not realize how much solitude and isolation I became accustomed to while living alone over the past year. And while I do miss the days of stripping down to nothing as I walk through the door after work, I enjoy coming home to the squeaky clean voice of my Ashley, saying "Hi babes!" just as much.

My laborious break up fiasco came to an end about two months ago. A series of events caused the final "End Scene" and we realized it was getting scary. Deep inside of me, in a place called "denial" I hide my manipulation. And it dawned on me that I had been manipulating and controlling and using my ex-boyfriend to keep me afloat. There I was, talking about freedom and liberation and living alone and learning who I was without leaning on anyone, but I was. When I needed someone to pick up the pieces, I knew he was the one. Even if we were just "friends", you cannot be friends with someone who doesn't want to be friends with you. He still wanted to be with me. That was wrong. And so we stopped. We didn't talk for a while, and we barely talk now.

In the meantime, the most bizarre, intriguing, attractive, complex human being has come waltzing into my life. I fear writing about him in fear that he will float away with the words that I type, but it's true. There's this glorious man that has been occupying my time lately. Does it sound like I've jumped from one person to the next? Maybe it does. But in my honest eyes, it's not that way. This new human came in and I had a reaction like I have never had before - I had to have him. I knew that if I was going to bring him into my life, I had to let go of that final little string that Zeus and I had (as described above). So yes, the new human was the catalyst in a way, in closing that chapter.

The thing about new human is that everyday I learn something else that intrigues me. It's been fascinating so far. Truly has been. I don't know where it's going to go but I do know that I do not have any questions regarding what I want right now - just to have him around.

Not only do I have a new roommate, but Maddie does as well! Carter is his name; a long-haired chihuahua with the cutest of personalities. Maddie and Carter are inseparable and I have not seen my baby this happy ever. She truly needed a sibling. The relationship I've watched them form is the reason I hope to have more than one child when the time comes. Every child needs a sibling I think. Let me rephrase that. Every child should have a sibling. They're two peas in a little doggie pod.

That's all for now. I've missed you so. Have you missed me? Don't answer that :)

Number 14.

Sweet disposition

Never too soon
Oh reckless abandon,
Like no one's watching you

A moment, a love
A dream, a laugh
A kiss, a cry
Our rights, our wrongs
A moment, a love
A dream, a laugh
A moment, a love
A dream, a laugh

Just stay there
Cause I'll be comin' over
While our bloods still young
It's so young, it runs
Won't stop til it's over
Won't stop to surrender
Songs of desperation
I played them for you

A moment, a love
A dream, a laugh
A kiss, a cry
our rights, our wrongs
A moment, a love
A dream, a laugh
A moment, a love
A dream, a laugh

Just stay there
Cause I'll be comin' over
While our bloods still young
It's so young, it runs
Won't stop til it's over
Won't stop to surrender

A moment, a love
A dream, a laugh
A kiss, a cry
Our rights, our wrongs (won't stop til it's over)
A moment, a love
A dream, a laugh
A kiss, a cry
Our rights, our wrongs (won't stop til it's over)
A moment, a love
A dream, a laugh
A kiss, a cry
Our rights, our wrongs (won't stop til it's over)
A moment, a love
A dream, a laugh
A moment, a love
A moment, a love (won't stop to surrender)

- Temper Trap