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In A Sea Full Of Oysters, I Finally Found My Pearl
Today I went to visit my mom for the day, and returned to the house where I had spent the majority of my childhood. My mom took me to lunch at my friends restaurant. When we walked in, we were seated immediately, though nobody from my home town seemed to recognize me. My friend who owned the restaurant asked me if I was okay, as she hadn’t seen me post any recent updates on Facebook. I explained that yes, I was doing just fine and that she wouldn’t see any status updates as I had deleted my social media awhile ago. She could see the pain in my eyes and…
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Summer Camp And The Breakup Playlist
Today I thought about the time when my relationship with Angie was nearing the end, and I returned to my old summer camp in search of solace. I spent a week at my old summer camp, wandering around remembering the ghosts of what once was, and yet it now feels like a lifetime ago in some forgotten dream. Nostalgia is the overwhelming desire to return to the way things used to be, yet refusing to acknowledge the fact that things will never be the same as they were, and our memories are often jaded. Life is beautiful it seems, when I am lost in my own reverie, yet I often…
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The World I Came Into Has Gotten Too Scary
My earliest memories are of being a small child sitting on the marble floor of our Greenwich Village apartment. There was something comforting in the coolness of that floor, in its immovability, in its seeming lack of opinion or judgment. It was a respite from the complexities of life in a large city with multiple families living in upstairs apartments under one roof. All my difficulties felt as if they could be put aside for a few moments in that little corner, next to the refrigerator. I could take comfort in the simple, repetitive task of sorting and stacking colorful blocks, ignoring the struggles in the wider world around me.…
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Friendship And The Life I Left Behind
When I was younger, like so many others, I thought that best friends were people who knew me better than anyone else in the world and with whom I shared everything. That was certainly true of me, my best friend and I were like siblings! As we grew up, things started to change. We both had jobs and responsibilities now. There were no longer any more sleepovers or wild adventures to be had; it seemed that our friendship wasn’t meant to last forever after all! The memories of the life I left behind come to me in waves, like whispers in the night. Although the time has passed and the…
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Send Me An Angel To Love
I’ve always been a mysterious person, always full of secrets, dark, painfully introspective and overwhelmingly observant. I’m the kind of person who will tell you the truth, but only if you ask me point-blank what’s bothering me or what I’m thinking about; otherwise, I’ll just keep it to myself and let you continue your assumptions about me. I’m the type of person who refuses to talk about myself in social situations, who never really lets anyone in to see what’s beneath the surface and who keeps it all hidden away. When I was younger, I would often look to the sky, wishing for the universe to send me an angel…
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Autumn Is A Time Of Reflection And New Beginnings
The cold weather has finally arrived, and this means that the autumn season has begun. Autumn isn’t just the time of year when we start thinking about cozy sweaters and pumpkin spice lattes; it’s also a time of reflection. Autumn is a season when we look back on the year that has passed and ponder how to improve our lives moving forward. As the leaves begin to change colors and fall to the ground, we find ourselves reflecting on how our year went through the hourglass of nostalgia. I lost a lot of friends this year, yet held out hope for a call that never came. I was there when…
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The Art Of Saying Goodbye
It’s an awkward feeling – the one you get when you have to say goodbye to someone you don’t want to let go of, be it a friend, colleague, or loved one. If you do not understand the art of saying goodbye, your relationships are bound to suffer. There’s nothing more important than solid relationships in this world if you want to succeed in life. I defied my parents’ wishes and dropped out of college. I was extremely intelligent, but struggled within the modern educational system. Regardless, my parents expected me to pursue an academic degree. I was adamant about not going back. I knew that there was more for…
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Today Is The Day I Quit Social Media
Today was the day I quit social media for good. There are many reasons why I decided to quit, but I am most excited about all of the benefits that come with it. The first thing I noticed today was how much time I had and how much more productive I felt during my day! Social media hasn’t just taken away precious hours of my time, but it’s also distracted me from what I could get done during the day. At the end of the day, social media just led me to be less productive as well as less happy overall in my daily life. Social media can have a…
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From Ties That Bind To Freedom: How I Escaped The Cycle Of Codependency
For many years, I lived in a constant fear of being abandoned by the people around me, so I did everything in my power to keep them happy and close by me. That strategy worked fine until the day I found myself standing all alone without anyone else to turn to. My earliest memories are of chaos. Chaos both at home and school, one seeming not to escape the other. It’s because of this that I made sure as soon as I had the means, I would turn and run away. But, I could never get away from the broken ties of ropes left over from the circus of our…
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My 2022 Reunion Tour
Ah, nostalgia. It’s the unavoidable memory of something from your past that strikes you unexpectedly and makes you feel warm inside. Usually this applies to positive experiences — but sometimes it can be painful to remember old times in your past when things weren’t so great. I was thinking about my childhood the other day and all the wonderful memories I have. I was born and raised in New York City, but grew up in a small town where everyone knew each other. I remember spending lazy summers days down by the river with my friends, fishing and swimming. We would get lost in the woods, explore abandoned houses, and…
