Nowhere Near Closer to God

They say the souls of people who die a traumatic death stay left behind, lost in a world they can't understand, trying to comprehend what has happened to them without ever discovering the truth about their existence, or lack thereof. 

My first memory of you hitting me is me running up a staircase in the basement we used to live in, trying to hide from you. Screaming, hoping that someone would save me, but everyone in that house was as scared of you as me. 

Fast forward a few years, I blame you for the reason I fucking hate math. I'll never make millions in finance or know how to save because of you. I was probably in second grade when I couldn't get long division. It wasn't enough for you that I was top of my class. You needed to show me that you would break my little toes with a sledge hammer you physically held over your back if I couldn't divide those fucking numbers.

Fast forward a few minutes later to my body on the ground and you knelt over me holding your palm over my neck, making sure your fingertips could touch the floor underneath my head. Your hands were always bigger than the world to me until that moment. 

I wore turtlenecks for two weeks after that by the way. I fucking hate turtlenecks, too. 

How about the day I used a bunk bed as a cage hoping you couldn't fit inside to crush me with limbs, but boy I was wrong. Your legs were long enough to kick the air out me. Your arms were long enough to make sure your fists could prove a point:

You are a man. I am a child. I do not speak unless spoken to. 

You are a man. I am a child. I do not speak unless spoken to.

You are a man. I am a child. I do not speak unless spoken to.

On the day of my sweet 16, I didn't want to dance with you. I danced with my mother before you and when your turn came you instantly started crying. You told me I should behave and stop being such a pain in the ass for you. It hurts your heart. I laughed. 

Let's talk about the day I couldn't take it anymore. I was 18 and you came at me like a freight train. You had something to deliver and it would hurt if I got in your way. Shit, I might die, and I wanted to. I was already dead inside. 

I pulled my own hair out of my head before you could reach me. I punched myself all over my body. I screamed that you made me not want to live anymore. 

You acted surprised. Look who the fuck is bambi now. You had nothing to say to me. You didn't come near me. You didn't say I'm sorry. You just looked at me.

and the craziest part about all of this is not that you used your fists to imprint perfectness into my skin,

It's that I lived with you for 18 plus years and you didn't even know I was lifeless, you didn't even know that you killed me

and I can't remember the time I wasn't a ghost,

so I can't even tell you when it happened,

or how you did it,

Now I roam the earth practically a figure of everyone's imagination,

everyone gets to choose who I am or what I mean when noises leak out of me

Every one gets to see a scariness they've never witnessed in their life when they meet me, 

because I used to be someone and maybe I would have grown to be someone better, but now the world will never know. 

Come together, right now, over me.

(post from early August)

I think the hardest thing for me in advertising, and as a creative, is to willingly giving my ideas away and be okay with people claiming it as their own specifically when working on a team. This next bit has got to be one of the best, most frequently repeated piece of advice I’ve gotten from this whole summer of seminars, webinars, “intern Tuesdays” (more seminars), and networking: Give your ideas away. There are plenty where those came from and those are the things that get built upon. I’m still drilling into my head that in advertising everything is about collaboration (pretty much life, too).

This post stems from that fact that my agency has an intern program where every other week or so we’re split up in groups and we have to make pitch. We have 4 days to create everything. Today we got our assignment and we present Friday.

My group met up twice today. In the morning, we talked about what we were working with. Throughout the day, the other intern who sits by me and I talked about a bunch of things. I threw a shit ton of ideas that, at the time, she seemed “meh” about. When we get to our second meeting she pitches the things I threw at her as “things I (as in she) thought of”. I know, I know. I’m being petty. I’m marrying my ideas. Seriously though, she could have said things “we” talked about. I would have positioned it as “we”.

So, this is where “giving your ideas away” comes into real life. I responded by saying “yeah when I told you that” and “when I told you this.” That wasn’t the right way to respond, but I was so stunned by how she positioned it that my perspective and judgement were a bit foggy. Looking back, I could have easily just ignored that and built upon it without mentioning that it was my idea. It was petty of me, but at least I learned instantly… right after that meeting anyway.

In the end, our idea ended up being based off of something I just blurted out and they liked. Who said I needed to marry my ideas in the scheme of things? We’re a group. All of our ideas meshed together is what will make this pitch, THE pitch.

Kids, the moral of the story is that when you collaborate don’t be an asshole. Even if you really are a huge asshole pretend that you’re not a huge asshole for the sake of collaboration. Nobody wants to work with an asshole. Give your ideas away. Give them with discretion and good judgment, but give them away. The more people you can get your arms around the more you can do with an idea.

Two heads are better than one and all that crap. Let’s just say it takes an army to make an idea real. By sharing it, you recruit and you cultivate. Get sharing.

Essence.

I'm falling apart at the seams,

Don't sew me up.

Don't attempt to know me,

I am imperfect.

I'll always come loose,

And make a mess of my insides

On your outside.

August 28, 2012

If what I have to offer isn’t enough for you— my looks, my conversation, my drive,

by all means 

Leave.

I have got enough of

All of the above

to fill myself up. 

There isn’t a void here for you.

Find someone to tear down who isn’t whole. 

I am entirely made up of myself. 

I am witty and clueless, I know nothing about anything and everything about nothing, 

and I live laughing and crying and repeating the vivacious vicious cycle that is my life. 

I look at myself in the mirror now and I smile 

because I glow for me. 

Healing

      I took advantage of the time I had off and went to see my family in Long Island. We’re such a mess, but it’s our mess. I used to want to escape that. I would spend most of my time on my phone or on the computer or in a room sleeping, but things change when you get older. You start missing the chaos of your family because it’s so small next to the chaos of your life outside of that.

       I missed the small space my mother takes up on our sofa and how I always sprawl myself out on top of her like a personal pillow. The times when she’s speaking and I look at her like there’s a part of her I’m supposed to be occupying and she’s in my way. I missed the way my little sister is always the outcast. She finally has friends now so we never see her. She’s in the stage I was at her age and I understand it. I’m glad I can understand. I missed the way Calvin’s face lights up every time he sees me. I was happy to finally reply yes when he asked me if I was staying until Sunday. I find it funny that he stopped asking people to play with him outside and because of that I went to play basketball with him in the rain. It turned into a family tournament. Him and I against his mother and father. We won. I missed my older sister’s loud mouth in the morning screaming “Cock-a-doodle-doo!” I missed our family dinners. I forgot what it was like to sit down at a table at home and enjoy the company of those closest to you. I missed our family dip. This weekend my sister made a new one that wasn’t so popular, but there wasn’t any left when we were done. I missed our family movies. I missed sitting wrapped up in my mother’s arms as we argue over which movie on sale we would watch. The women always win. I missed watching home improvement and real estate shows. We always bet on which house the couple will take or whether they will keep or leave the home or whether they did a good flip. Somehow in all of that finding jokes about the host’s hairline. I even missed the arguing, the crying, and the misunderstandings. No day goes by without at least one of those because we make sure to spend every waking moment with each other. 

          My mother is in a hard place, well really, everyone there is. There is a lot of tension in the house on a usual day and you can still feel it underneath the level of jokes and smiles we’re used to. We all know what will eventually happen. No one talks about it, but everyone feels it. It was nice to be able to put all of that aside for one weekend and just enjoy life, how it used to be. The family. The Baldi bunch. The family that may never be again, but is always preserved in that moment. I didn’t want to come back to work. I didn’t want to come back to the city. 

I wanted to stay in the small place between my mother and the sofa we can’t put our feet on

Wrapped up in her small arms under a throw blanket

With our feet up on the ottoman we call a mushroom

Watching late night television and laughing so hard we snort. 

        It really sucked to have to go back to work right after all of that. I miss my family, but family is far away and I’m here trying to make a living to make life easier, for all of us. To show them that we’re capable of more. All of us are capable of so much more, but no one has fully reached or tried. Sometimes I want to give up, too. I think of how easy it would be to live a lazy life. To take the alternate route. Then, I remember how hard my family actually has it even if it looks good on the outside. My mother worked way too hard to show me that I was capable of more. She has way too much trust in me now to let her down. She is positive I will make it and that gives me strength when I don’t want to be strong anymore. Trust me. There are plenty times I don’t want to be strong anymore, but I have to keep on swimming so I don’t drown, for all of us.

A few good quotes for the soul

"Character, like a photograph, develops in darkness."

— Yousuf Karsh  

"Respect yourself enough to walk away from anything that no longer serves you, grows you, or makes you happy."

— Unknown

"Why are you stingy with yourselves? Why are you holding back? What are you saving for—for another time? There are no other times. There is only now. Right now."

— George Balanchine

"Life happened because I turned the pages."

— Alberto Manguel 

"And I figured out that the reason I couldn’t get through the day as well as I can now is because I had too many things on my mind, on my plate, you know, for one person to have. So I started to eliminate some of the things that were too heavy to carry and unnecessary."

— Erykah Badu