During my fall semester, I’ve been volunteering at a nearby soup kitchen in our downtown New Brunswick area (which is awful to walk through as a young lady, by the way). Just like any new experience, I was nervous at first but quickly got over that factor. In the past couple of months, I’ve volunteered at the soup kitchen seven times. To my surprise, most of the “customers” at the soup kitchen have cell phones. Like many other volunteers, I thought it was a weird thing - do they choose to pay their cell phone bills monthly over paying for their meals? Does someone else pay it for them? Furthermore, most of them look perfectly well off. They’re well-groomed, seem to bathe regularly, and I’ve even seen one man walk in with a shiny red motorcycle helmet that lacked a single scratch.

…Really?

One particular woman frustrates me the most. She’s a regular and is very social; however, she presses all the wrong buttons. Her doctor apparently said that she can’t consume food that is too rich (i.e. the ravioli we prepared today). OK. That’s fine. What about the bagged lunch we have? (It includes a sandwich, a snack, and some type of beverage.) Nope. She doesn’t want it.

“You know what?” she says. “I’ll just have a little of the ravioli today but that’s it. No more after it. My doctor says I’ll end up in the emergency room if I have too much of that stuff.”

Again… Really?

A chef on our end suggests some leftover turkey from Thanksgiving. She goes to the walk-in fridge and takes out a bowl. At first, the customer says no but then changes her mind. The chef heats some up in the microwave and puts the rest back into the refrigerator. Then the woman asks for seconds. Fine. That’s heated up to and served to her. How nice.

At the same organization’s Clothesline Project is where donated clothes are sorted through and organized so that anyone who needs them can walk in and take a few garments with them. A lot of the conversations I’ve heard while I was there was in Spanish so I didn’t pick much up. However, I understood this much: 3 pieces of clothing per person. A couple of ladies took advantage of the fact that they were not watched by the supervisor. They stuffed clothing into bags they were carrying and only left a few garments in their hands as they were leaving to be seen.
Should I have said something there? I’m not sure.

During that same day, a woman approached another volunteer and myself with a slip of paper. I’m guessing that it was documentation to prove that they needed the clothing they came for. She explained that it was her first time there and didn’t know what to do. Her four-year-old daughter was with her…
They looked for some clothes and even though the mother’s voice sounded rather light, you could tell that she was trying to uphold that facade for the sake of her daughter. Luckily, the supervisor found a brand new winter jacket for the daughter that fit her perfectly. Sure, she didn’t have the luxury of going to the mall with her mother to buy the jacket that some kids claim they have to have but it was cute, pink with various colored hearts decorating the interior. It even had matching snow pants.
While I was sorting through the boxes of clothes, I found a brand new boxed holiday-themed pajama set. If I remember correctly, it had reindeer on it. It was size 5T which meant that it should have fit her daughter or at least be close to fitting her daughter. I approached her, box in hand, and asked if it would and if she would like it since I honestly didn’t know where to put it. She looked down at my hands, said yes, and thanked me graciously.

The entire volunteer experience has left me with mixed feelings. I guess I know I’m helping people but do some of these people need the help? Do they deserve the help? Am I a bad person for even saying that?
I’m grateful for all the opportunities and the luxuries I’ve been blessed to have as well as all the people in my life that I know I could turn to if I ran into unfortunate circumstances. I’m also more than willing to give back but I’d like to be sure that who I’m giving back to deserve it. 

The more I talk to my mom, the more I confused I feel about her and the more confused I feel for her. I’ve always felt the existence of an inherent hopeless romantic, melting into the typical sappy girl after seeing any half decent chick flick or reading a super cute note sending anyone with any hopes in love on a trip of emotional overload… and I’ve always wondered - where did this come from? The only time I really witnessed any signs of cheesy affection between my parents seemed to be a sarcastic exchange of “honeys” and “sweeties.” It only made me want to gag. How could I have developed such a keen desire for romance when I am the mere product of these two romantically-bland individuals?
After being a bystander of so many arguments between them for so many years, I told myself I would never be in a marriage like that. I told myself I wouldn’t fight with whoever I was with to that extent and be okay with day to day life with someone I could never communicate with. After my first serious relationship, I realized that fighting was not an easy thing to evade. After that relationship ended, I realized that it wasn’t worth trying that hard to fix something that was bound to break and it only left me kicking myself for being so naive. (I have this theory that ever girl undergoes this. Every girl except my own mother, of course.) Even then, though, I still believed in something real and I knew from then on, I wouldn’t sacrifice just anything in hopes of achieving that. There was no way I was going to give up who I was for a lost cause ever again. Someday I was going to find somebody or they were going to find me, but I was in no hurry and I’m sure whoever he was probably wasn’t either.
It wasn’t until I found that somebody when I realized how damaged I was. I was experienced, sure, but all that shiny, hopeful polish became dull from past disappointments and left a rough, unrefined finish behind. Stronger, maybe, but definitely not the same. Day by day, cracks are being filled in and little by little, I seem to be smoothing out. This isn’t to say that I don’t still recall anything in the past or any stories my parents shared with me that scare me, but the hope that I’ve always had is being brought out again. I’m going to stop now before I make myself throw up. Anyway, it’s nice.

Happy one year + one week. (:

Came across this clip at work. (..still at work.)
I’ve always felt like a target for my sister, a sibling to bully but in a good way, if that makes sense. I’ve always felt as though she pointed out all my faults and areas where I was the most helpless and defenseless. Of course I took it personally whenever she mentioned one of my sub-par qualities and probably took the defensive stance, but in hindsight, she was mostly right. She may or may not have had the right to point them out at that exact moment or in the way that she did, but she still was mostly right. I could have always been more, done more, and been better. Over the years, I’ve consciously tried to do more and be better. I can’t say that I still don’t caught as my sister’s target, but I feel as though I am more aware of my laziness. If I choose to be lazy, I rationalize with myself enough to be rid of the restlessness I get for being less than I can be.
It’s one thing to be frustrated with myself, to watch myself fall into a pit of unsubstantial complacency without much of a fight…but to watch someone else…that’s a different story. To watch someone who claims to be aware of their options and yet refuse to throw a punch at whatever’s pushing them down makes me lose faith in the strength in humanity. It might be bad, but someone who has had it worse has definitely done tenfold more than you have about it. Quit crying about something you’re not willing to change and then maybe you’ll get somewhere.

Amen.

Anguished Teen

Maybe my expectations of her is just too high. Maybe my expectations are unreasonable. Either way, I always have this irrevocable dread whenever I’m with her. I think I love her just because I have to, because she’s my mom…I know I don’t love her because because she’s my friend. I don’t feel that bond with her. I don’t feel like I could truly open up to her (and that’s difficult for me to not be able to do considering how much of an open book I am with complete strangers). Perhaps I’m afraid of her judgment, shame, or even hate… or it’s because I know it’d only bring irrational disapproval and that’s something I simply don’t want to hear. I’m so incredibly bitter and angry because of her and I’m so ashamed of myself because of it. It’s so adolescent to be considering ways to get back at her, to show her what a shitty daughter I could be and these ideas only end up making me even more upset at myself.
There are so many times where I just sit across from her, dying to share my aspirations, ideals, and dreams. There are rare times where I do get up the nerve and give her a glimpse of who her daughter is and hopes to be, but time and time again, I regret it. I can’t talk to her about relationships because, for whatever reason, she doesn’t have that natural ability or desire that most women have to talk about the opposite sex. I could have sworn I told her about the internships I scored but just today she was telling me about an email she received about jobs in Morris County. Thanks Mom - you’ve just shown me that not only do you refuse to listen the words you speak but you’re deaf to mine as well. If you’re the one preaching to me about going to church and reading the Bible so I could solve my everyday problems using those stories, then I think I may be better off not going.
Where did I go wrong? Did I learn something wrong? Was I supposed to pick up a submissive trait while I was growing up? I’m sorry but any child that she raises would not be submissive and let her or anyone walk all over them. None of us ended up like that and only a scrap of me respects her for not being like that. Her passive aggressive ways piss me off and her inability to accommodate drives me up the wall. Sure, this entire post may be unfair since she can’t defend herself, but hey, whenever we argue, she ends up resorting to saying, “You’re right. You’re always right. Alright?” That’s fine.
I don’t doubt that she’s undergone more hardships than I have, but it is because of this that I expect so much more from her. I want so badly to feel sincerely empathetic about all of her experiences and I want so badly for her to share these experiences with me without a look-at-what-you-have-now-and-be-grateful attitude behind it. 
She makes me dislike her, but that’s not the worst part - she makes me hate myself.

—————————————

All right. I just wish my mom and I were friends… and I wish that was as easy as it sounded.

It’s always fun to discover a new person, assuming that the new person is worth discovering. I always self-proclaim to be a people-person but sometimes I wonder if I’m actually lying to everyone about that. Of course I love finding the right person to click with…and everyone has to admit that it’s an awesome fleeting feeling when it happens at the most random times. There’s no denying that establishing a similar foundation with a complete stranger is not a fantastic experience. It’s nice to know someone else thinks waiting in the same line as you sucks too or someone also expresses the same irrational excitement as you do after you accidentally let out a miniscule squeal. All things considered, I wonder how difficult it truly is to find these people. Could I have this click with everyone or is it a rarity I take for granted? Assuming that I could speak every language and meet the nearly 7 billion people in the world, would I be able to honestly say I am that people-person I claim to be?
…Even with little surprises of perfect clicks with strangers in everyday life, it’s nice to know go home, settle in, and be able to talk to the same person every night. Sure, there’s no longer that fleeting new-and-exciting feeling, but it may become something more. I can’t say for sure that it won’t get predictable but I’m pretty sure that even if it did, losing it would be quite unfortunate. Some days I find myself wondering the same thing here: how hard is it to really find this kind of person I could spend nearly every waking (and sleeping) hour with and not be tired of them? Will I end up taking this for granted? Is that what happens to people on a day-to-day basis? I hope that doesn’t happen to me.

Foxxy. I don’t know what it is about him this summer but since my parents and I aren’t exactly living together and I was the one who nagged for a dog ten years ago, I am deemed as the person to take care of him while I’m not at college…and it’s been weird. Some things have been the same, some different. He used to constantly want to sit on/with someone and wiggle his way under the fence all every chance he could outside to visit the dog down the street or to just go on his own adventure. Now, he lays down on our laminate flooring every day I sit at our dining room table on my laptop. All day. Every. Day. He rarely wants to go out on his own and if it seems like I’m leaving, he’ll immediately and excitedly run out the door until he realizes I’m not actually leaving, in which case he comes running back onto the steps briskly. He whines and barks when I put him in his crate at night and randomly bursts out when he hears a foreign sound or if someone’s at the door.
Most strangely of all, he waits outside the bathroom door while I shower. It isn’t just that - he consistently follows me everywhere and sits wherever I stop. I probably take this kind of loyalty for granted since I find it to be an annoyance half the time, but during other times, it’s just nice to know I’m never alone with him around. It’s been a decade and despite all the “accidents,” it’s hard to think that this companionship probably won’t last another decade longer.