Living the Moment

Near-invisible shadow of myself stretching out forever on the...

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 11:47:00 -0500

Near-invisible shadow of myself stretching out forever on the pavement.

The past few days, I’ve walked around and around the one block radius in which I grew up. On crutches, you see the world so much more slowly — and as a consequence, you see so much more of everything. And it’s all so damn beautiful.

In the last year of my life, I’ve been on 19 flights and four long distance road trips. It...

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:25:07 -0500

In the last year of my life, I’ve been on 19 flights and four long distance road trips.

It feels about right.

New York, I come back to you

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:39:53 -0500

Seven weeks later, hobbling on crutches, with more metal in my body, and three weeks of complete to semi-hibernation to my name.

I may be bionic, but it's all good cuz I'm dating a droid...

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:54:11 -0500

Fed Ex Guy: Hi is...? (Looks down at and studies envelope for about 30 seconds.)
Fed Ex Guy: Is T-2-V-1 here?

…and then there were three… (via rachadler2003)

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:39:58 -0500

…and then there were three… (via rachadler2003)

Me in the hospital (exactly two weeks ago). I look so tiny and...

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:30:00 -0500

Me in the hospital (exactly two weeks ago). I look so tiny and young…maybe 12.

I’ve come a long way from there, baby! (Yay for modern medicine and my body’s capacity to heal!)

(via rachadler2003)

I really, really want

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:40:00 -0500

A huge Haagen Dazs chocolate peanut butter ice cream cone. Like right now.

And I want to eat it in the sunshine…

On a beach…

In Australia…

That Whitehaven beach that I went to in February - the one with the sand so sparkly white that it makes your eyes hurt…

And I want nobody else to be around…

But I want there to be a huge canvas - like the size of my living room…

And I just want to run from the water, to the sand, onto the canvas, licking my chocolatey peanutbuttery amazingness — and make a crazy mush of sandy footprints and ice cream drippings all across the canvas.

ronen-v: Aaaaaaaalllvvviiiiinnn! (thanks for taking this,...

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:57:42 -0500

ronen-v:

Aaaaaaaalllvvviiiiinnn!

(thanks for taking this, Kapto)

Oh, this is just about the most awesome picture ever.

My world has become:

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:32:40 -0500

a one bedroom apartment

Vicodin pills and Fragmin needles

a walker and crutches

ginger ale

the bruises and swelling all up and down my thigh

pajama pants

my computer screen

movies and movies and movies and books

my imagination

Broken hip at 30

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:37:24 -0400

I now have some serious x-ray bling and am hopped up on an antibiotic, morphine, valium, and percaset (sp?). Whoa.

On Fear and Shame

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:14:00 -0400

When I think about my life, certain facts astound me.

It goes like this:

- I wanted to learn. But at eleven years old, when my father decided to teach me how to ride a bike, I was too embarrassed to be seen by my friends who all already knew how. So I said thanks but no thanks, wormed my way back into my room, and tucked my head into a book. I didn’t learn how to ride until I was twenty-one.

- In my late teens and early twenties, I was in a relationship that I never really wanted to be in. I said yes at eighteen because I wanted someone to buy cute anniversary gifts for, someone who would wander the back woods with me late at night. And I liked him as a person. But we didn’t really ever connect. And still, I stayed with him for years. I felt trapped, I felt discontented, but I was too afraid of the consequences. Of what people would think. Of what his face would look like when I said the words. Even, really, of the words themselves.

- I first visited Colorado when I was twenty-two, fell in love hard, and knew I had to live here some day. Still, it took me until I turned thirty to leave the East Coast. To move where I knew nobody? To a place where the streets weren’t also a historical map of my life? To a world so far from my friends and family? Terrifying.

- All throughout high school, I went to parties but rarely danced. Even when they were dance parties. Even when a really cute boy asked. Ninety percent of the time, I refused. The reason? I felt everybody staring at my body, noticing how awkwardly I moved, judging me.

- As a kid, I couldn’t even ask the man behind the counter for change. Any step outside my daily routine - the people I knew, the things that I’d learned were Acceptable - scared the shit out of me. Around anyone who I believed to be “cooler” than me, my body would tense up and my vocal cords would seemingly disappear. And of course, there were boys. I knew they would never like me back, that they’d make fun of me if they knew I liked them. It was better not to exist to them than to face that hurt - to seem mean and above love than to risk opening my mouth to speak.

What it all means? Sure, I eventually learned how to ride a bike. I finally broke up with that boy. I live in Colorado now. And these days, I dance everywhere - not only at parties. And I’m definitely not afraid of people anymore. (In fact, someone recently called me an extrovert and I was floored. But I guess I’ve made that transformation.)

And still, none of this excuses the lives I didn’t live. I was twelve and stuck at home while my friends rode in circles around and through the town. I was nineteen on New Year’s ‘99, eating pizza in a living room and holding hands with the wrong boy when I could’ve been out laughing with my friends, meeting new people. At twenty-three, I sat in a gray Manhattan office staring at the brick wall across the street, while my dreams were dancing through the Rockies. I spent hours of my adolescence scared and pasted against a wall as the music pounded all around me. For years, I let my insecurities rule out so many new friends, so many adventures.

This isn’t about regret. Regret is futile. I can’t change any of this. I can only take something from it all and move forward. And I take this:

The things of which I am most afraid are often the same things I most desire and the things that will make my life come alive. When my heart starts to pound inside of me, when I imagine my own anxieties as everyone else’s judgments, when I feel my voice beginning to fade away, I know I’m on to something good. It’s still difficult, but I’m learning to ignore that persistent clawing inside of me and just go for it.

Tzvi!

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:46:31 -0400

Tzvi!

And in the end, there is nothing but the flutter of a blue dress, the feel of your mother’s...

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:57:00 -0400

And in the end, there is nothing but the flutter of a blue dress, the feel of your mother’s hand, the sand scorch beneath your feet, the sound of the Atlantic hitting once and hitting again.

There is nothing but the weight of the pail, the grainy surface of castle after castle, the wet fabric of a bathing suit clinging itchy against you, the lacquer of strands across your forehead, the cold touch of a shell pressed to your ear where the whirr of the ocean lives and will never leave.

"The definition of ‘talent’ is ‘enjoying practice’"

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 21:42:02 -0400

“The definition of ‘talent’ is ‘enjoying practice’”

- @BurningDan (via ronen-v)

5-year-old niece: Auntie Rachel, are you married?

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:28:00 -0400

5-year-old niece: Auntie Rachel, are you married?
Me: No.
5-year-old niece: Oh, so then you're the youngest?
Me: No, I'm the oldest.
5-year-old niece: But how can that be?
6-year-old niece: Sometimes it is that way.

Conversation (via rachadler2003)

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:25:32 -0400

Conversation (via rachadler2003)

Hell’s Kitchen (via rachadler2003)

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:56:42 -0400

Hell’s Kitchen (via rachadler2003)

I wore this back brace 23 hours a day, every day, for two years...

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:51:46 -0400

I wore this back brace 23 hours a day, every day, for two years (from when I was 12 to 14).

These were the most torturous, insecure years of my life. Still, even after I had the corrective scoliosis surgery that rendered the back brace unnecessary, I kept it. Throwing it out seemed wrong — like I was throwing out the embodiment of all that those years meant.

Parting with it now is a lot easier. I’ve come a long way in these sixteen years and I don’t need a physical reminder of the lessons I learned during that time. They’re part of the way I live my life. But when my parents asked if they could throw it away, all I could think about was that big, clunky metal and plastic object occupying space in some landfill.

There has to be a way to recycle it, I thought. An hour of research and I found it.

This organization is amazing, people. They’re called A Leg To Stand On (ALTSO) and they take old medical supplies (back braces and beyond!) and use the materials to make prosthetic limbs for people in other countries who need them. How incredibly awesome is that?

So now my back brace, the instrument of so much pain and torture in my life, is being used to help make other people’s lives better. So friggin cool.

If you have anything that can be donated, contact them!

Decade

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 09:38:00 -0400

It’s strange to remember ten years ago — how insecure and unsure I was about myself and my value.

Why?

Me, at Arches National Park (via rachadler2003)

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:38:54 -0400

Me, at Arches National Park

(via rachadler2003)