I am, I am, I am.

One always insists that it can never happen to you or your family, and then, quite unequivocally, it does.

I got a job as a legal secretary at a civil law firm in south Los Angeles County the beginning of February 2012.  Previously I spent my time working at an animal hospital in Los Alamitos, California, where the wife of one of the partners for whom I currently work referred me for a position their office needed to fill. I work roughly eight hours a day, with an hour lunch from noon to one o’clock. My lunches were usually spent shopping, having lunch with a girlfriend, or planning for an extravagant party I was planning to throw that weekend at my old apartment. I had a party for every holiday: Halloween, Christmas, Anti-Valentine’s Day. I even threw a fifth birthday party for my cat Sherman, complete with tuna cakes. I was the definition of a party animal. Hollywood was my home away from home. I roamed the streets with my girlfriends until dawn broke through the black that blanketed the smog-ridden horizon.

Up until December 2012, Christmas was (and always had been) my favorite holiday. While I am a Pennsylvania transplant, and the majority of my family still resides on the other side of the country, we still found a way to make the holidays special, even across the vast expanse of over 2,300 miles. My mother and I have made it a habit to continue to buy each other a plethora of gifts, wrap them, and them ship them across the United States, only to be opened while we’re on the phone with one another on Christmas morning.       

In early December I went to the dentist for a routine cleaning. I was in the chair while my phone was ringing. My older brother was missing. But how could that be? I’d just talked to him the night before. We’d talked for a few hours. He was having issues with his girlfriend. Like me, my brother had an affinity for all things poisonous to him; for some reason it only keeps us coming back. When he stopped answering my messages, I had assumed that he’d fallen asleep. To this day I still wish that that were true.

On December 5, 2012, a Wednesday, I went to work just as I always did. My brother still hadn’t surfaced, but I thought nothing of it. I’d called his phone a few times, even sent him a few texts, but he hadn’t responded. It was unnerving considering the fact that we talked often, but it was my insistent belief that he’d gone on a drunken bender and spent the night on a friend’s couch. My heart could not bear the weight of any other possibility.

That Wednesday morning passed and was uneventful. Twelve o’clock inevitably rolled around and I went to lunch. My phone rang and it was my mother. We talk often, so I answered without apprehension. Her trepidation was palpable. “I think there’s a serious possibility that your brother hurt himself, Ashley.” I could feel my heart still to a stop behind my lungs, and I went cold.

It was as if it fell on deaf ears. Not my brother. Not Dustin. There was no way. I talked to my mother on the phone for about twenty minutes before I returned to work and told my bosses I needed to take the rest of the day off. I explained why, and they were gracious and supportive. I was in hysterics by this point, hardly able to drive. They offered to give me a ride home, but I assured them that driving was a great comfort to me.

I got home shortly before my boyfriend did. He came in the door off our patio just as my phone began to ring. It was my mother. I answered it, so sure of myself; so certain it was good news. I didn’t say anything. I don’t think I was breathing either. There was a moment of unsettling, dreaded silence before I heard her broken voice, and I knew before I even heard the words: “He’s gone, Ashley.”

I don’t remember what I was wearing or what I’d had for breakfast that day. I don’t remember what I was working on, or any conversations I’d had. I don’t remember what heels I wore to work, or which GUESS jacket. I don’t remember much about that deceivingly normal morning, but I will never forget the sound of my mother’s fragmentary voice on the other end of the phone; the insufferable agony that hung from her mouth with every word, as though I could see it seep through the phone and delve into me with the same amount of inelegance. It was then that I blacked out completely, but my boyfriend tells me I was unrecognizable. He tells me of how I collapsed to the floor, screaming and sobbing and clutching my phone to my chest as though I thought the closer I brought it to me the more quickly this brusque and callous pain would subside. He tells me that his attempts to hold and console me were thwarted by my own hands as I fought him off, exclaiming in unintelligible misery that my very “skin hurt”. Before that moment I had never succumbed to any pain like it, and I don’t believe I ever will again.

It has been just over two years since the untimely passing of one of my best friends, and one of the best brothers a sister could ask for, and if it has taught me anything at all, it is that time does not heal all wounds. With the inevitable passing of time it is becoming increasingly difficult to come to terms with the loss. However I continue to be grateful for the love and support of my closest friends and family.

There are moments of uncertainty. There are dark, draining moments in my life when I think that maybe it should have been me instead. There are brief, frightening, milliseconds of harrowing ambiguity wherein I think that some day I will forget him entirely.

And when it gets really hard, the illustrious words of Sylvia Plath are there to comfort me, reminding me that I am not alone in my anguish:

“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart.

I am,

I am,

I am.”

In Loving Memory

Sgt. Dustin Lewis Lear 12/22/83 - 12/05/12

Resurrect the poets.

To comment on this worlds ignorance is seen as fault,

Reading the future of generations to come through tears of our children’s eyes,

Yet when change comes..who is the first to embrace the call,

When flowers fade to dust because of mistreatment,

Withered away due to lack of love...sunshine,

Searching through the dark abyss of unworthy possessions to find meaning,

Ask...what is your reason for being?

Too Deep For A Blog Post

Partially functional, half of me is comfortable. My other half is fidgeting wondering what to include and exclude. So many things I still don't know, I just know their true feelings. So many times I've changed my mind, sometimes I’ve question my own words. So many times I’ve deleted a draft, and have left them as piles of thoughts  stored in a word document or on  a pen and paper. See sometimes I am scared to write, thinking what people will say and perhaps not being myself. As of late, I’ve let it all out, I have no rhythm, I have no flow, just know that when I am writing I am on my zone. This is a post, for all of my fellow authors, don’t be scared to demonstrate what you got, don’t be scared to take the weight, be so deep that its too deep for a blog post.

Change

To me it seems that after turning 21, every other birthday after that is just another year, another day. Life seems to move fast forward as the seasons change and things around you start to slowly fade away. The years start to flash right before your eyes as you get one step closer to getting older every year.  When I was younger, I always wanted to be older so I could do more things. Yet now that I am older, I finally understand the importance and joy of being a kid.  A time when having no responsibilities, having fun in the sun, and just being a good kid was more than enough.  Some days as I sit on my stoop and watch the kids run up and down the pavement, it makes me wish that I could go back in time and trade in my heels for a pair of sneakers. It seems that it was almost yesterday that I graduated from high school. Staring blankly into the universe while having no clue in the world where the rest of my life would take me.  Having thoughts full of doubt and confusion about which career path would make me happy for the rest of my life.  Though it may have taken time, I have finally made my choice to be a writer.  A choice that was given to me as a gift all along but it just took a tap on the shoulder to realize it. Throughout my short years on this earth, I have learned that being young is full of adventure and mishaps. A time to rediscover yourself in more ways than one while chasing after all of your dreams is what life is about. Reaching goals and milestones and taking in all of your hardships in stride and turning them into the driving force to move forward with your life.  Life may not be perfect but really what ever is?

Just A Small Town Girl

I was born in the south in 1990, in Fort Smith, Arkansas. My family moved to Pennsylvania when I was just a year old. My mother was predominantly a (fabulous) single mother, and she raised myself and my three brothers the best way she knew how. We minded our manners, came home before the street lights came on (most of the time), and we said “please” and “thank you”, lest the wrath of the dreaded wooden spoon rear its ugly head.

I grew up catching lightning bugs in glass jars and playing tag in the woods; I was one of the boys with my scraped knees and tough bare feet. We went fishing with our hands in the “crick”and took crawdads home for dinner. We ate fresh blueberries right off the vine until we thought our bellies would burst, and plucked apples from the tree in our neighbor’s yard so our mother could make her famous apple crisp.  We knew what it meant when our momma  counted to three, and we knew how to make her laugh before she got to two-and-a-half. She was, and always has been, an advocate for tough love, and we have been made all the better for it.

I grew up where folks said “pop” instead of “soda” and “yinz” instead of “ya’ll”; where it wasn’t uncommon to get caught behind a horse and carriage on your way to church. I grew up in cowgirl boots and sun dresses, my golden hair in pigtails and dirt under my fingernails. I grew up in the shadow of a woman who was the light of my life; someone I aspired to be in every possible facet.

Holidays were spent with my family around one table, as though it were a symbol of solidarity betwixt the five of us, and my mother sat at the head. We had a giant Christmas tree we’d start to decorate around Thanksgiving, complete with garland and ornaments we’d had since birth. We were allowed to open one present on Christmas Eve, as was our tradition, but nothing more until early the next morning. Neither myself nor my brothers were ever able to sleep very much. My brothers and I were as thick as thieves, and our mother was the chieftain.

I am now 24 years old. I work nearly 70 hours per week (two jobs) and have next to no social life other than the time I spend with my cats. I live on my own in south Los Angeles County. There is no Christmas tree in my studio apartment, and the dining table upon which we used to eat dinner has long been sold. I eat dinner in bed and flip through television channels I am mostly uninterested in until I feel it is late enough to go to sleep. And this year my family will sit to eat Christmas dinner around a plethora of different tables, just as we have done for the past ten years.

Long gone are the days of lightning bugs and crawdads; of Christmas-tree decorating and begging to open presents. When I was younger all I wanted to do was grow up. I wanted a mustang like my older brother, and I wanted to be a police officer and take down “bad guys”. Now that I am 24 years old and am sitting behind a desk (although I DO have that mustang), all I want to do is go back to Pennsylvania and chase the neighborhood boys in my bare feet. Long gone are the days of blueberries and apple crisp, but I still have that wooden spoon.

Tell Me, Who Should I be?

Please, tell me who I should be. I don't seem to fit in the 9-5 office work which I did for 2 years, not because I'm lazy but because I truthfully feel that no person should be in that environment --that's just my opinion.
I have  tried the (no fucks given getting fucked up whenever I can) stage..that ended quickly. It's fun once in a while but to live like that takes a toll on a persons body and character.  I don't believe my mission in life is to get to a specific age and find myself at house parties with girls who are young enough to be my daughter...If I had one.
Or, should I be the ideal family man? I do hope to have children one day, but the whole house with picket fence, big screen T.V, wife at home dinner ready, 2 week vacation a year idea, I don't really find appealing.
People may criticize but that's  just the way my mind is set, I don't mean to offend.
Maybe it's because I'm a single man. If I find that special girl maybe I'll toss all my aspirations and views out the window, knowing that at least one person (besides my family) loves me. I hope that's not the case.
In the end I find myself in the category of "Dreamer", it's difficult to identify what exactly that is. All I know is that I'm not built for this mainstream style of living.
I'm completely open to suggestions.....if you know who I should be.