Dear Friend,
Have I ever told you how beautiful my sister is? She is the kind of person that would take a bullet for any stranger if it meant they could go home that day and see their family one last time. Despite all her struggles and hardships she keeps an open mind about anything. I just know she is the person that can go to bed at night with a completely clear conscience.
I think about her and all of the things she has done and I think that she is the person whose living her glory days. She will look back on her life throughout high school at being the girls’ soccer team hero, her life through college and playing women’s professional football and her life now as she is halfway across the world educating those tiny children about this universe; and she will be able to tell herself that she made a difference. I wonder at what point in my life I will be able to look back on what I’ve done and see the difference I’ve made. Mostly I think my glory days are starting now as I am blossoming into this new independent being. I never scored the winning goal on a sports team, I never saved someone’s life, but everyday I wake up and try to be the best person I can. Maybe someday in my future I will be able to look back on these days and see the difference I have made in someone’s life. I think I would be proud to call those my glory days.
The reason I am talking about my sister so much is because she is really the only person I have ever been able to look up to no matter what situation she has ever been in. With the holidays around the corner and my sister halfway around the world it is hard for me to think about spending time with my extended family. I’m always surprised when there is so much going on and someone still finds space in his/her mind to be sad. It happens every year with my family. Someone, every year, has gone through some dramatic life changing event and as we are all sitting down to our Christmas dinners at my grandmothers retirement home in the mess hall (where it always smells like bologna) that person just breaks down into wailing sobs. The nearby aunt, uncle or cousin has to excuse themselves along with that person and everyone else stays behind to gossip. It is hard for me to understand why my family is always this way. It is harder for me to understand why someone’s holiday is always ruined by something they have been through. I have never been the person to break down in tears over Christmas dinner; no one in my immediate family has in fact. I guess that might say something about us. I just though I should share this, it seemed relevant. Really I wrote you because I miss my sister terribly and I don’t think the upcoming holidays will be the same without her.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Saturday, October 4, 2008
October 4th, 2008
Dear Friend,
On nights when the sky is that deep shade of black I like to sit outside and watch the stars. In those moments on those perfect nights I feel infinite. No time constraints hold me to rush my thoughts…no obligations push me to be somewhere. I am in my own mind, my own place receiving the privilege to ponder about anything I should wish.
On one such night I was 10, maybe younger, having a campout on my best friend’s trampoline. As we sat in our hordes of pillows and blankets, in those drowsy phases right before sleep washes over you, I blurted out “do you believe in aliens?” The question, seeming random, made my friend giggle hysterically. In turn her laugh made me laugh and the answer to the question I had asked was lost. My friend fell asleep shortly after. As I sat there facing the sky and seeing all the stars and all that space I couldn’t help but to think about the complete relevance of my question. With so many countless starts, countless planets and countless galaxies it felt hard to believe we were the only ones there. In that thought I stumbled over how small this Earth seemed…microscopic in the scheme of things. That led me to fall over the thought that if this world, so populated and so big seemed like such a small thing, and then I, this 10 year old girl was next to invisible. I felt so alone in that moment. Why try to accomplish anything when in the spectrum of this universe I couldn’t even been seen? That thought was something I struggled with for awhile, and life seemed evermore inane.
Through my own struggle I watched as my home life was torn into shambles. My sister was struggling with coming out to my parents and my dad’s hatred of that situation sent my sister crying herself to sleep nightly. His denials, arguments, and hateful words sent a rift through the middle of my family and my own depression was quickly swallowed up into the other situation. I soon began to realize that the importance of life was life itself. We were to be the ones to discover the different universes, discover the species in the depths of our oceans and discover cures to different diseases. Even if the world seemed so small in this infinite universe, we were to be the ones to make the biggest impact.
On nights when the sky is that deep shade of black I like to sit outside and watch the stars. In those moments on those perfect nights I feel infinite. No time constraints hold me to rush my thoughts…no obligations push me to be somewhere. I am in my own mind, my own place receiving the privilege to ponder about anything I should wish.
On one such night I was 10, maybe younger, having a campout on my best friend’s trampoline. As we sat in our hordes of pillows and blankets, in those drowsy phases right before sleep washes over you, I blurted out “do you believe in aliens?” The question, seeming random, made my friend giggle hysterically. In turn her laugh made me laugh and the answer to the question I had asked was lost. My friend fell asleep shortly after. As I sat there facing the sky and seeing all the stars and all that space I couldn’t help but to think about the complete relevance of my question. With so many countless starts, countless planets and countless galaxies it felt hard to believe we were the only ones there. In that thought I stumbled over how small this Earth seemed…microscopic in the scheme of things. That led me to fall over the thought that if this world, so populated and so big seemed like such a small thing, and then I, this 10 year old girl was next to invisible. I felt so alone in that moment. Why try to accomplish anything when in the spectrum of this universe I couldn’t even been seen? That thought was something I struggled with for awhile, and life seemed evermore inane.
Through my own struggle I watched as my home life was torn into shambles. My sister was struggling with coming out to my parents and my dad’s hatred of that situation sent my sister crying herself to sleep nightly. His denials, arguments, and hateful words sent a rift through the middle of my family and my own depression was quickly swallowed up into the other situation. I soon began to realize that the importance of life was life itself. We were to be the ones to discover the different universes, discover the species in the depths of our oceans and discover cures to different diseases. Even if the world seemed so small in this infinite universe, we were to be the ones to make the biggest impact.
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