here i am. back here again. life is a circular process isn't it? we make mistakes and note them so we don't make them again. or we cry and say i will not make the same choices that lead me to this pain. or we listen to people's view of our lifes and it weighs us down and we think 'never again'. but honestly we always come back to those times. good happens. bad happens. i'm back there again. and its ok. its good. i'm cutting strings that are painful. i can't push it away anymore or act like its not there. i just have to do it, get the metaphoric scissors out and snip. it will let me love others more. let me love myself a whole lot more. this summer someone told me i needed to give myself time. let myself be selfish. take care of me. its time i listen. how beautiful it is the place where i am. how wonderful my family in nyc. we are not just friends, we are family. fighting. caring. crying. cooking. loving. giving. sacrificing. needing. being. laughing. laughing. laughing. how good it is. to know that every time i am back here again. in the struggles. in the joys. they are there too. having patience. having words. having silence. i don't think i will ever get life right. but i don't think thats the point either. its about getting love right. and i am willing to, in fact i am desperate to do that. to love myself right. to love others right. to love the universe right. in the end no matter where i am. i will always circle back to love.

i took the 3 train express from times square today uptown. an usually choice for me. i found a set and opened up the new Times with barack on the cover. the man next to me turned and said "you know who just endorsed obama?" i smile. "nope, who" he responds..."mccain". i break out. awesome. i can't stop complimenting the joke. i asked him how many times he told that joke this week. he can't count, to many. its solid, to many times doesn't exist for that joke. he loves that i love him. he tells more political jokes, i keep laughing. he is funny. and this is beautiful. as 96th street approaches he starts to pack-up. he looks me in the eye "thanks for laughing. its been a real pleasure" he emphases the word real. and it was. real i mean. i don't really like when people say "keep it real" but if i were to say that. i would have times like this subway ride be the example in my mind about what keeping it real means. he stood up and i said "you kidding, thank you! and oh, i'm going to re-tell that joke a bunch" he steps out. ding-dong. next stop on this train 110th street central park north.

3 pencils are in my hair. i'm eating mini m and m's. my office is a mess. i just finished playing with a chinese yo-yo. i took a full hour lunch. cut 225 orange slices. baged 27 cabbages. i'm filling out an order form for a butterfly. i'm happy, its official. today is a happy day. it feels good to be happy. not happy like pretending. or faking it. or half-way. but full on, can't explain it...just plain ole simple happy. i have laughed more at work the past few days. more then i have any where else in recent history. i am officially starting to feel comfortable with my job, and letting myself just let go. when that happened...goodness just flowed right in. its sad to think how much un-happiness the past 6 months has offered me. i'm glad to be back to me. normal me. ok me. joyful me. me who is ready to laugh. to heal. to sleep. to read. to write. to enjoy. to ponder. to exist.

today i had a child swear. he tends to do this often. and every time it happens he is put on time out, or the like. and it obviously is not working. i decided it was time to take a different approach. maybe he didn't understand why he couldn't swear. i asked him "why do you think we shouldn't swear or say bad words". he responded "because then you will get in trouble". well that may be true, but he needed a better answer if he was going to stop swearing. i thought about what people told me when i was a child. -you can't swear because we can't take God's name in vain-or other lines connected to religion. thinking about it i knew i couldn't tell him anything like i heard. so here i was in my office with a 6 year old and i am asking myself, you know what i don't know why we can't swear...i looked at him...i came to a conclusion. "are you a human?" he smiled "yes" i kept going "me too. we are not cats or dogs or fish. (to which he let me know that he really likes cats). and it is our job as a human to try to make all other humans as happy as we can. we should make people laugh and smile. when we say bad words or call people names does that make people happy or smile?" he said, "nope, it makes them angry and mad" "exactly, and we don't want to make people angry...but happy. And i know that you are really good at making people laugh...i think you should work on that, instead of making people mad or sad" this whole time his eyes have been wandering around my office. i'm not sure if this has just been another teaching moment of mine that has gone in one ear and out the other. i'm assuming that it is-most of them are. i wrapped up the talk by saying "ok?" he looked at me and said "stacey you know why a bus is inside a car?" i smile, "no" he finishes..."because it wants to eat a cellphone" we both laugh. he made me happy. lesson learned.

recently i had a discussion with a friend of mine about cockiness. she was afraid of dating someone who was known for being cocky (both her and i seem to be attracted to that quality in a person). thinking about this topic brought up an interesting question: what is the difference between being cocky and being brave? living in nyc people have to be brave. we all moved here alone (or mostly alone). we are all trying to make it in our field, which often comes with a lot of competition. we are faced with the ugliness of the world daily: homeless begging us for our change, and such. we are one of millions, literally. we will never be the prettiest. the smartest. the most accomplished. and we wake up every morning in the light of these facts. in our small apartments, sometimes to cold showers while the spanish speaking neighbors yell in the hallways. to walk out unto the concrete streets filled with poo (seriously there is so much poop on the streets). to make it through these conditions we have to be able to hold our own head up. we have to be able to pat ourselves on our backs. cause no one else is. we have to speak up for ourselves. we do not have anyone fighting for our cause. it is us. keeping our own sanity. telling ourselves we are loved. saying its going to be ok. call it cocky (and maybe it is) but it is also bravery. staying happy. staying proud. staying true. in this city sadness comes easy. bravery is another thing.

in our staff meeting today we started to plan for the haunted house we put on for the kids who live in the isaac/holmes residence. i mentioned in the meeting that were i grew-up they would put on a haunted house for the kids. but it wasn't the kind that had people pop out at you. instead each room dealt with some kind of moral delima. like one room was smoking, another drinking, and another premarital sex. they would have a skit in each room about the negative affects or shall i say the "scary" things that happen when you do these things. then the last room was a "Jesus" room...where they asked us to choose him and not the poor choices. my co-workers laughed hard when i finished the story. and it is funny. insane almost. when i went through it as a seventeen year old i knew that it was a little crazy conservative thing. but to think about that and to think about now. man alive. things change, people change, how i have changed. i can't believe i made it through that culture...all the while laughing. i do remember a few times crying out of guilt. or praying for my salvation constantly. it was a lot of pressure. to be perfect. to be "holy". the whole time seeking love from a God that i was scared of. i think that christianity at its core is beautiful. somewhere it went wrong and people started to believe the had to pay a price for love. for salvation. for good things to happen. and i was differently one of those people. i went to Bible college seeking answers. wanting to find out how i could be happy. wanted to be close to this God that everyone else seemed to be buddies with. wanted my skepticism to be pushed away with every Bible class that i took. but the more i listened, the less i understood. and the more frustrated i became. how could a good God send people to "hell"? how are so many people i go to school with who label themselves as christians tend to judge everyone, talk about everyone, not be able to listen? i would become so heated in class discussions that i would stop raising my hand and just throw out my thoughts and questions. eventually my teachers started to ask me if i was ok. and i wasn't. who i am. what i believe. it will never fit into the culture i grew up in. this might sound ok, and it eventually will be. but today i am still mourning the pain that this is bringing my family. and the frustrations that it has caused. i love my family dearly. they are my rock and my joy. i feel horrible that i will not be exactly what they pictured. yet in the end honesty is the best form of love i can give them. they have embraced me were i am, and i couldn't be more thankful for that. i have worked through a lot of things this year. clarifying a lot of who i am. and today i finally have time to think about religion and me. i need to find a balance of respect for the beliefs i grew up in. clarification (or peace with the lack of it) in my own beliefs system, and LoVE for all those around me in the midst of it. we will see. its all a process.