Ever since I could remember, I have been a notorious ingrate. The one thing I’ve always, without fail, taken for granted is the amount of love my family has for me. When I say “love,” I mean LOVE. My parents, grandparents, uncles, and family friends have literally always done nothing else but support me, guide me, and pray for me. For this, I don’t have any proof that I’ve ever thanked them for that love- that is one of my larger shortcomings.

I say this because I had yet another enlightening moment of how much I fail to think about the things my family does for me, even in the most subtle of gestures.

As some of you know, I totaled my car a few weeks ago and was incredibly lucky enough to have come out of the accident without a scratch (aside from a burn on my hand), no property damage, and no injury to anyone else. The weeks following I was able to drive to work using my grandmother’s car that she so kindly allowed me to use, my parents took me around to buy a car of my own for the first time in my life, and all without any shade being thrown from my family other than some mild humor driven shots about how only I would manage to hit an inanimate object.

My stepdad collected all of my things out of my old car before it was released to be totaled. Today, I was digging through the heaps of junk I kept in my car, deciding what would go in my new car and what would go in the garbage. God- I kept so many papers in my car, it’s actually absurd: receipts, medical lab results, pamphlets, greeting cards and then there was this:

I found this sheet of paper (that I thought was only a prayer- I was wrong), that my grandmother told me to keep in my car. It reads as follows:

“Protection — Read Isaiah 52:12

We all have fears: fear of damage. Fear of losing a child, fear of being alone, fear of failure.When your fears arise to wake and defeat you, when you feel sick to your stomach, and your heart hurts from the anxiety, remember this: God is with you, every day, every hour, every moment.

Focus on Him, really focus, and you’ll see that your fears are nothing more than speculations that will dissipate in His presence”

I’d completely forgotten that I had this note in my car- forgotten that my grandmother has even given it to me (again, because I’m an ingrate). But let’s review again — I totaled my car because I fell asleep at the wheel because I’d fallen asleep at the wheel and I made it out without injury, without damaging property, without hurting another person. My only consequence was the loss of my car and a lesson learned to listen to my body. I say this, again, because most people in my life know that while I am not a deeply religious person, I stand firmly in my faith in God and the power of prayer. Now I’m not saying that this piece of paper kept me from serious harm in this accident but I’m also going to point out that none of you have proof that it didn't, so……

Now I didn’t really pay much attention to the note (other than listening to her and leaving it in my car), much less the scripture mentioned but here it is and it is so incredibly relevant.

For you shall not go out in haste, and you shall not go in flight, for the LORD will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.- Isaiah 52:12

Needless to say, I put the note in my new car. And on a larger note, I’ll wrap this up by taking a moment from being a notorious ingrate and say thank you Mamí.

Gracias Mamí, por sus oraciones, por su guía, y por su amor.

I’m in yet another period of transition. However, I am not quite sure what the transition is. All I know is that I feel it.

It feels like something is about to begin or end, they’re essentially the same idea.

I am constantly trying to stop, assess, and re-configure. Adding pieces of myself that contribute more to my quality of living while removing, moreso attempting to remove, those things that are toxic and weighing me down. I have a hard time with memory though, which makes it hard to remember what was good and what was not. Hard or not, it has to be done and I’m trying.

I wish there were a way to free write and not feel like a lunatic. Rather I wish there were a space for me in this universe. It feels like I was not meant for this place, neither here nor there. If that makes sense. I feel like I’m floating out of myself and my body is being held down by anchors of stress, doubt, and short temperament. I thought that by now, I would have leveled out.

That is not the case, nor has it ever been.

As of right now, I’m holding on to more of my past than I should but I’m still not ready to let go even though I see the flames spreading throughout my life. Everything I’ve tried to bury, rising to the surface in a violent, fiery rage. I’m going to start trying to douse the fires; one way or another these fires will go out and I will work the scorched earth so that, in its fertility, I can tend to myself and once ready, from the earth: myself, wholly.

All day, my mind wanders around thoughts of making my quads grow, focusing on my form when I squat, why I can’t quite get my form right with my deadlifts, how weak I am for only being able to bench 65lbs. I can’t get those thoughts out of my head. I constantly feel inferior to every single person surrounding me at the gym. I know that shouldn’t be any of my business but at a gym as crowded as mine, I can’t help it. I have images of these women with these incredible bodies lifting heavy burning in my brain; burning a path towards the little part of my brain where I store all my motivation.

My brain whispers to me…

“You need to be lifting heavier.”

“For someone your size, you shouldn’t be this weak.”

“Weak.”

I’m not entirely sure but I’m sure building muscle starts with building strength. Somewhere in that, I feel like food plays a huge factor. I know that I have two major eating problems:

1. I cannot physically stomach a lot of food

2. When I do eat, I’m still not eating healthily enough

I have always been a difficult eater. I don’t eat a lot. I try to eat healthily but I’m extremely picky and one cannot build strength and/or muscle on chicken tenders alone. More recently, I’ve started to prep my meals, starting small. I’ve started prepping my breakfast and my lunch, leaving dinner up to my household.

Discipline comes step by step. Eating healthily for breakfast and lunch does not a healthy diet make; I’m working on it. I’ve started making lists; recipe lists, grocery lists, to-do lists (workouts), lists of sites for reference regarding lifts, lists on lists on lists. Organization is the key to execution.

Going back to muscles which moreso means going back to strength, I’ll be doing Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training by Mark Rippetoe. I plan on sticking to this program diligently. I hope that I can achieve significant results. I want to be physically strong, so I will work to be physically strong. I want to feel strong, so I will do what it takes to do so. I can be the quadzilla I have always dreamed of, if I want it bad enough.

I am transitioning to a new job which has caused a jarring rift in my workout schedule and equally as important, my eating habits. At my last job, I was fortunate to be surrounded by restaurants serving both healthy and delicious food as well as having two coworkers who lived healthy lifestyles. I was in the perfect situation to produce weight loss and healthy eating. However, it was not producing enough income to sustain the transition of an expired grace period on my student loans and a new car note.

So then came the transition, to a new job in a new city with new work hours, new coworkers, new (wildly unhealthy by comparison to my last job location) food options, and a completely new daily schedule which means a new workout routine which I am currently trying to re-establish.

The transitional struggle with which I’m dealing has almost nothing to do with my job really but more-so with my discipline. I don’t have the convenience of midnight workouts anymore because I have a longer commute and have to look like a real adult at my new job which means I have to sleep early to wake early; without working out being a convenience, I haven’t been doing it. My job is no longer in an area where health takes precedent over taste: therefore, I’ve been eating shit foods and whatever food my coworkers order for lunch.

So I’m not sure if my problem is clear but here is my best attempt at a thesis to describe my problem:

Since I entered the transition of a new job about three weeks ago, working out and eating healthy has become less convenient to implement into my new daily routine; therefore, with my lack of discipline, I’ve negated to workout and eat healthy during the transition. Having neglected the routines of my healthy lifestyle habits, I’ve found myself SEVERELY disappointed with both my current mental and physical status.

This problem added to another problem of mine: my self esteem.

Since graduating, I decided there were no excuses to being the best I can be for myself (athletically). I was eating clean, I reduced my alcohol intake drastically, I was working out regularly. However, this change in my lifestyle also changed my sources of pride. The part of me where I was once (and sometimes still am) proud of being able to drink 30 beers in about 4 hours was replaced with a part of me that was astoundingly proud to have gotten my mile run, something I have always struggled with, down to 9 minutes. So now, being in my current transitional state and not having any discipline with my health, my pride is shot. My pride is shot because I wasn’t able to run my mile straight through since I started my new job. My pride is shot because I weighed myself today and gained 3lbs. My pride is shot because someone felt the need to spot me at the gym without request because they saw me struggling. The most obvious proof that my pride is shot is that I dared to send the following to both my FGG and my boyfriend:

Let me make something clear, the only person to have ever really witnessed me bitch about my my self esteem is my mother who has heard me complain enough times ( and for however long I’ve been able to speak) that she has a routine response of: “you’re never going to be happy if you keep comparing yourself to others” or “you’re too preoccupied with your looks.” So for me to bring up my self esteem (which I immediately regretted the second I hit send) to the people for whom I try to be my most tough self makes it very clear that I have finally fallen. Not in the dramatic, rock bottom way; but the “I have this shitty feeling that is bothering me so much that I am willing to be vulnerable if it will help me feel understood” kind of way. However, after a long workout and an equally as long introspective shower I realize that my disappointment in myself is my own fault. I chose to not be disciplined enough. I chose to eat like shit for the past 3 weeks. I am the person that controls my actions and therefore has control in the ways I will see myself. It’s incredible how being vulnerable will motivate you to put yourself together as fast as humanly possible so you don’t have to do it again for a very long time, especially if you’re like me.

Obviously there is a solution to my discipline problem: stop being an asshole, start preparing your meals, and get to the gym regularly like you had been before. Grow some balls and stop saying yes because you want to eat soul food with your coworkers or because its Temple Tuesday and that blackened chicken is so fucking tasty.

The obvious solution is not always the easiest to implement. On the other side of that statement, the best results are not produced out of convenience or ease but out of hard work, dedication, and discipline. So, as I deduced in the shower, these are the next steps if I want to stop feeling like shit: work hard, be dedicated, and be disciplined. No excuses.

• Do you have to give a two weeks notice to your current job?
• When can you start?
• Do you have “a”, “b”, and “c” documents?

Then there is the build up of anxiety and panic leading up to your first day where you begin to question all of your qualifications, time off you’ll need to request ahead of time, planning new routines, etc. After this, there are two more mini processes: your first day ,and your first week.

I’m going to tell you about my first day.

Last Thursday, I started at my new job as an administrative assistant at a privately owned firm. I woke up at 6:40am, earlier than I’ve ever had to be awake for any of the jobs I’ve had. I mentally prepared myself as I examined my new dress while waiting for my flat iron to heat up. I did my hair, then my makeup, and finally my outfit. If getting myself to the job was half the battle, then I was really close to that halfway mark. Finally I leave my house as my mother wished me luck on my way out the door and all I could think was that I was going to need more than luck to get me through the nausea I was feeling. As I started my drive, the nerves began to give way- driving always calms my nerves until someone cuts me off, that is. 8:43am I arrive thinking “shit I’m so early I’m going to look like a lame ass.” I get buzzed into our building, walk up the stairs, take a deep breath, and open the door to see what? Not my new boss. Not a hoard of people in the office but “T,” the woman who‘d been doing my job prior to my arrival. I introduced myself and asked her to excuse any of my behavior that may seem on edge as I was nervous to which she replied, “Don’t be nervous, this is not an office to be nervous about. These people spend most of their afternoons drinking.,” (Which turned out to be very true). Her statement only made me more nervous and curious about what I’d gotten myself into taking this new job. As the morning dragged on and I began to fill out my employment forms (Confidentiality Agreement, Non-Compete, I-9, W-4, etc.) my new boss comes in talking at a million miles a minute, ends in a question to which I responded with a smile and a nod. I had no idea what he said, but I said yes. I was left to meet staff on my own, try to understand this new job for which I’d had practically no training. “T,’ who had been training was sick for my first day and had gone home so there I sat at that HUGE desk alone with my adult costume on until the time came for lunch where I was able to have my first normal seeming moment of the day listening to my new coworkers laugh about their jobs, discuss their weekend plans, and ask me questions about myself not pertaining to my professional background which was a relief. I slipped back into my adult costume after lunch and eventually made it through the rest of the first workday with the help of my new coworkers. I had survived.

Everyday from here foreward will just be surviving until I’ve got a good grasp on my new workworld. I expect that I will be able to grow with this company while being able to simultaneously discover and develop my skillsets as a professional. Surviving Day 1 means that I will survive Day 2, Day 3, etc. Eventually, soon, I will do more than simply survive.

“There is a light that only I see, that only I feel around me. It is a blinding light, a reminder of my own constructed reality. My vision is dichotomized between the two lights of my world. Through one, there is the apparent truth, the “real” world; through the other is my own person truth, my inherent reality. I cannot hope for you to see through this lens because it, by nature, would not be true to you. Blindness is coming to the surface, though I’m not sure through which eye it will arise. I ask that you not try to visualize my truth, but to dissect it so that among the pieces, you may find your truth. My apparent truth is this: I am a woman on the verge of graduating college, I am 21, and I am alive. My inherent truth is this: I am a woman on the verge of graduating college, I am 21, and the world as I am coming to see it, is not real.

On January 9, 2015, my best friend died. It was not unexpected, it was not sudden- if anything it was postponed- and it was of an illness not perceived as real. She killed herself. I think she killed herself, you see, because she became blind of her apparent reality. A blinding caused by the asphyxiation of this reality by her own inherent reality. An inherent reality that no matter how thoroughly I, and my group of friends, could not understand because we’d attempted, without fruition, to resuscitate the sight of her apparent reality.

I miss her every day. There is this sense of despair the moment I wake up where I am immediately inclined to go back to sleep and never wake up again because the apparent reality just stops feeling worth living. There is little to alleviate the frustration with the lack of control in my life. There is little patience within me to gather the strength to go through each day without feeling like I should just run in front of a moving vehicle going so fast you can hardly see it. I imagine that I’ll just disappear on impact; I’ll just appear in a world that makes sense. There is heavy grievance in my heart every day that grows with every day I live without her in my life. The people I love don’t seem to satisfy the need for company. Inaudible voices are understood somewhere within my core, reminding me of this solitude. They express the truth that I will never shake this feeling, that there is no hope for recovery. I am often scared, that I will run down this road, urging myself never to return. One day, this will make sense- I tell myself. I am lying.

It is selfish, the thoughts that consume my mind. There is a family I belong to that would be disserviced should I act on my own desires to be gone. Friends who will mourn the loss, not as zealously as with Jana, but mourning nonetheless.

However, I understand that I will never be loved nearly as much as she had been loved. I will never be as pleasant or understanding as she. She was an idol of perfection to which I can, without a second thought, never match. She was an fallen angel; one who had never denied her jump from the heavens to let her demons consume her. She fought, she tried. I never had to try, I am a competitor fighting against my own demons just to prove I could. I am always burying them, it never ends. The deeper that are hidden, the harder they strive to survive and resurface constantly threatening to reveal themselves to the people I had convinced effortlessly that they don’t exist.

There is something to be said about the process of falling in love and that is that it is always under the least convenient circumstances. Oftentimes, it goes undetected until you’ve gone past the point of any conceivable return. There is the epiphanic moment where the object with which you’ve fallen in love shines in its perceived glory. That moment comes with an all consuming energy; fear, excitement, hesitance, anxiety, euphoria coalesce into an electric sensation that runs over every space of your existence.

She’s managed to take with her the one thing I’ve consistently worked on for the past three years. There is no peace of mind for me. Every single day has proven to be an emotional struggle. She is in my sleep, and in my day dreams. I hear her laugh louder than I can hear myself crying. I still don’t understand why she didn’t love me enough. I don’t understand what more I could have done. I miss her so much. She took my happiness with her. I am looking for happiness in the people around me but it;s not the same. She has taken everything that I cannot replace with her. There are no people with whom I can share my pain or my anger. I just wish I could understand, and some days I wish I could just forget about her altogether.”

However, to the person looking for employment this proposal is much larger than just getting a job. This proposal forces the interviewee to ask themselves a big question: Am I comfortable with working for the same company for mich longer than the 3–6 month period I’d planned for when I submit my application? What would this commitment mean for my long term goals? How will my spouse feel about this commitment and our joint plans?

Most recent college graduates on the job hunt are seeking “starter jobs,” which can play a huge role in the reasons why they’re not being employed. Unless an employer is searching for a temporary hire such as a hire for a specific project or to fill the space of an employee until the right permanent hire is found, they will not feel inclined to hire someone they know will continue their job search. Most of the people looking for “starter jobs” do not recognize the give and take presented in an interview. You (the applicant) want an employer to hire you which includes salary, professional development, potential benefits, etc.; this is the give on the behalf of the employer. The employer wants you to committ to their business, be a part of their team, and work with them to grow their business over a substantial period of time; this is the take on the behalf of the employer. We can see how the give and take roles are reverse when change the syntax. It is essential that someone looking for work understands both their own perspective as well as that of the person for whom they’d like to work.

Long story short: The synergy of a business ultimately depends on long term committment from both employers and employees. Businesses can not survive with, and therefore cannot benefit from hiring, “starter job” applicants.

Some current facts about my life. I live at home with my mother, stepfather, and my two brothers. I work at a head lice removal salon with two very supportive managers. I work out almost daily.

I have a large group of girlfriends from my alma mater known as the Feminist Girl Gang (FGG). I am dating a man, R., who is currently in Officer Command School in Newport, RI. He’s been away for almost two weeks now.

Honestly, I am very unsure of how storytelling will work out for me but with my life being as quiet as it is these days and my need to constantly update someone is at an all time high maybe this will help. Maybe not, I’m honestly not sure