Something slightly sugary

Ah the familiar click of rapidly moving keys under my fingers. There have been a ton of thoughts running through my head that I keep telling myself "I should blog about that!" But at the same time I can't seem to make enough time with all the extra time that I'm given.

I find it hard to write about things when I'm feeling happy. I feel that happy thoughts just seem to flow endlessly out of my mouth into the ears of innocent bystanders. Whether they care to hear about my happiness and joyous mood, they fall victim to the onslaught of cheery tones. I find blogging, or writing for that matter, is something that I use as a release of stressful emotion. I tend to sit down and want to write about something when I feel that burdening others with my overly moody emotions is just bad karma. I sit down at the computer when I can't hold in anymore of the overly powerful stirs of feelings and if they aren't released it will create the horrible word-vomit that occurs in the most unfortunate of places. My word-vomit is comparable to a frat house party where alcohol is consumed at a rate of astonishing speed and mixed with various forms of belligerent shmoozing and all at once comes hurling out in a slightly toxic and foul smelling mixture onto pledges and anyone unfortunately close enough to be in range of the spew.

So I decided to try something new.

How about talking about something happy? Just because I've repeated the story a million times doesn't mean that it's going to get a notch worse on the millionth and one time. It may make it better.

So, I'm happy! I'm overly, happy. I haven't felt this happy in a long time. It's a freeing happiness. A happiness that makes me smile when I wake up, grin throughout my day and go to sleep feeling hopefully optimistic about the future. It is almost sickening I know. I don't know how long this kind of euphoric happiness can last, so I'm embracing it while it is here. I'm squeezing the living hell out of it, going to make sure that every last drop of happy sap is sucked out of this feeling until it is shriveled up like a dry prune. And for no particular reason, or reasons maybe I've yet to admit to myself...I'm this happy. I can do anything, go anywhere, be whatever-the-hell-I-feel-like-being-today happy. It's strange really, because a few months ago I was convinced that happiness was a long lost friend of mine that I could fondly look back on our memories together. He occasionally stopped by for a cup of tea and was too quick to leave, but now I think that he may be here to stay for a slumber party, or two, or three, or a whole week.

People reaffirm thoughts that I know to be true in my own head but fail to listen to when my own conscious is screaming them at me. I need to hear them from someone else to make sure I can recognize they are real. What you put out into the universe will come back to you. I am a magnet for happy thoughts. I will not harbor unhealthy thoughts. I am a product of my own mood. Positive energy and good vibrations will be returned to you in time. The law of attraction will attract like people and like situations to myself. I know this to be true, it just got happily hammered into my head recently. So far, it has yet to prove me wrong.

Please don't :)

Here's to another overly positive and happy day tomorrow.

Good night world.

Bree

Everyday's so caffeinated I wish they were Golden Gated

Are you going to San Francisco?

Wow what a week I've had. I broke free and drove up the coast of California to San Francisco. Kelly and I took the Pacific Coast Highway up to San Simeon, with a stop in Cambria for lunch. We watched the elephant seals fling dirt on themselves in the fog and continued north to Ragged Point where we stopped for a romp in the thick fog and...in my case...numerous bathroom breaks. From Ragged Point we took the twisted winding highway up to Big Sur, where we camped for the night in Pfeiffer Big Sur state park. The colors of the forest we're so vibrant...pictures didn't even do them justice. The next morning we drove to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and tore ourselves away from Cannery Row to drive another 3 hours to Vallejo. For anyone that hasn't ever been to Vallejo...I'd say it's a spot you can avoid on your next roadtrip...

Luckily my dear English friend Niki lives there...and may as well be the only white girl in Vallejo...and we stayed at her place for a few days. She was my roommate when I was living in Waikoloa on the Big Island and I remember why we got along so well. She's just one of those free-spirit people that you can talk about anything with and do anything with and she's completely down for it all.

From Vallejo we drove into wine country, to the town of St. Helena. The grunge of the city left behind us, the sprawl of thousands of neatly trimmed rows of grapes welcomed us to the famous Napa Valley. It had always been a dream of mine to go wine tasting in Napa, and when we pulled up to Beringer Vineyards I was smiling so big my face started to hurt. If anyone hasn't had the opportunity to go wine tasting that lives in California...PLEASE do. It's an experience that is so unique and SO much fun! The area of Napa is so beautiful and the town of St. Helena is absolutely exquisite. Even if you don't drink wine, it's worth a trip up there just for the history. For $20 we got an hour and a half tour around the vineyard and aging tunnels and four samples of wine...even some dark chocolate :)! The port wine from Beringer...OOH THE PORT WINE!...is my favorite...I ended up splurging on a bottle.

That same night Kelly, Niki and I, along with some new friends from Marin...went into the city for Taco Tuesdays. I actually went out! I know, shocking. And I stayed out until 5 am! AH! Even hungover I was able to get up bright and early and tour the city of San Francisco and the Marine Mammal Center. I drank drinking chocolate at the Ghirardelli Factory and saw fishermans wharf and drove across the Golden Gate Bridge. Saved the cable car for the next time I'm up there...so that way I have an excuse to go back :).

But I really don't think I'll have a hard time going back up there. I'm already counting down the days until I can get back to that city by the bay. I'm frantically looking for my chance to run back up to bay area. I love it. Not just the city of San Fran, but all over it. The people, the scenery, the smells, the tastes, I love it all. The hardest part of the entire trip was taking the 5 freeway back towards LA. Don't get me wrong I love LA, but at one point Kelly and I looked at each other and said, "What if we just turn around now and go back? Do you think anyone would mind?"

I WILL BE BACK IN SAN FRANCISCO.

or somewhere along that huge bay.

*Sigh* Until then...

Bree

Abundance

I'm feeling overly emotional tonight. Ten bucks says mother nature may be to blame for this one. I feel like crying for no particular reason but to cry. I find myself trying to create a reason in my head. Kelly and I may need to bring a box of emergency lady accessories on our trip.

I leave on Sunday for northern California. I keep saying it's to San Fransisco but I don't know if that's where I'm going. I'm going all over the place. To Pismo, San Simeon, Ragged Point, Big Sur, Vallejo, Napa, San Fran, all the way down the central valley back to Santa Clarita. I'm looking forward to it a lot. And than 7 days later I'm going to drive to Park Moabi on the Colorado River for four days...it's the wanderlust syndrome, I told you.

The part I'm looking forward to the most is being able to talk. And talk. And talk. And the endless hours of driving being absorbed by talking. I want to talk until my jaw hurts and my throat is raw and the air in my car turns into a Scrabble board. I want to soak up the news and gossip with my old friends and I want seep out all the emotions and things in me until I drip with nothing but divine happiness. I want to spit the words out of my mouth and devour the words into my ears and be wrung out and hung out to dry when its all said and done. And guess what? I will. Oh I will. And everyone better be ready to hear it.

And everyone better be ready for some crazy amounts of pictures. And more pictures. And pictures of pictures and pictures of me and pictures of my friends and pictures of landmarks and pictures of food and pictures of driving and pictures of signs and pictures of trees and pictures of wine and laughs and smiles and views and pictures of pictures of pictures.

WHEW. What an abundance tonight is :)

Bree

I've got a symbol in my driveway

For some odd reason, I am not sure what my picture I have set up above this ^^^ represents about myself. And in a way, I don't like what I think I am thinking it is representing. It can be one of those glass-half-empty glass-half-full pictures. Am I running away from my problems, or towards them? What's the symbolic meaning behind it? Is life not meant to be symbolic and is it merely the human imagination that is convincing us that everything has to have a rhyme and a reason?

Well. I believe everything happens for a reason.

And I have said this before and I will say it again until I turn blue in the face. Everything happens for a reason and the signs are pointing you in the right directions. You just have to loose your GPS and start following your heart. GPS will tell you turn by turn how to get there, but you're missing all the great sights along the way. Your destination is ahead on your left, but on your right is Chance, Fate, Opportunity, Daring, Fun, Adventure and I even heard they've been known to throw in their good friends Love and Friendship. I'm learning this the hard way. Or maybe the right way.

Blah blah blah.

Good night world.

Bree

Mindfullness Mindlessness

Everyone keeps telling me to write. Write Bree, write about this, write about that, write when you're happy, write when you're sad, write when you're right, write when you're wrong. I find I write only when something is such a deep, raw emotion that I feel like if I DON'T write it down, it'll just rub me until I bleed from the inside out. I write when I feel like I HAVE to get the word's out because otherwise they'll be like my own form of toxic poison. How crude and awful of me to say that my own words and thoughts are like poison. I apologize.

But everyone is their own worst enemy right?

The amount of change that has overcome me in the past month since I've moved home is a bit ridiculous. I'm not sure if sharing every mundane and obscurely huge detail of my private life is 100% appropriate at this time, but I do think that everything in life happens for a reason. This has been proven to me time and time again..and in the past few days...time and time again...again. I just have to remember what I already know, even if the reminder is coming from a least-suspected source...in the form of a question...answering my own question...questioning my own answer...being referred to again that everything happens for a reason.

Sorry for the riddled tongue twister. I'm just merely blabbing. Trying to help a slightly-uninspired mind find a little inspiration.

The other night, something really beautiful and magical DID happen between my dear friend Kelly, my brother Jonathan, my little cousin Noah and I. We got into a deep, heartfelt intellectual conversation. It involved the universe and life and light and soul and body and mind. Topics that I think we were too afraid to approach on our own, but as the circle of love opened up around us we let everything out. Even Noah, who's only 10, proved that he's an older soul that I think any of us could have guessed. But just the spill of emotions and new ideas was so beautiful, the energy in the room literally changed. It was a tangible, electrical, amazing energy that you could almost ALMOST hold in your hands. To be surrounded by such a diverse group of long-time family and friends and know that we can share anything and say anything without being judged was really wonderful. We had trust in each other and created an amazing bond between all of us, just by merely talking.

I don't know where I'm going with this...I guess if I can give you a moral of my ramblings it would be just to go out into the world tomorrow with an open mind. Everyone, every situation, every single little thing and person and event that comes across your path happens for a reason. A reason that many of us won't know until years down the road. I'm thankful for the amazing people that are in my life right now, and for the amazing people that used to be in my life, because deep-down, I've learned invaluable life lessons from all of you that I could never have learned on my own.

Be open minded. Ok? Ok.

Good night.

Bree

Reflections

And here comes another novel.

Bare with it...or not.

I don't know how to say what I am feeling. The words seem far and few between. Sometimes words aren't enough to express human emotion. You can sprinkle in some adjectives, throw around the nouns and spice up the verbs but it may never do true justice to what a beating heart can feel. The only way to describe my emotions would be to SHOW you them. Not tears, not laughter, but the physicality of them. The embodiment of my memories. I want you to feel the sand, hear the voices, smell the air, see with your own eyes the beauty of the remembrances in my mind. I feel so grateful that I can shut my eyes and go back to that place, go back to that time. I will never EVER take that for granted.

Leaving Hawaii was difficult to say the least. I dealt with it in many ways. It was almost a grieving process. I was angry, sad, depressed, I had a bout of denial. I finally accepted it. I took in ALL that I could in those last few weeks that I was there. I left nothing untouched. I finally pursued everything that I had said "Oh..I wish I could do that...maybe some other time." There is nothing left on that island that I wanted to do that I didn't. After a while, when the acceptance of leaving had sunk in, I almost wanted to just GO. I wanted to rip it off like a bandaid and not draw out the process of saying goodbye.

The morning I sat in that airport, staring out the windows of my lasts views of Hawaii, a rainbow...the brightest rainbow I had EVER seen...stared back at me. At the time I considered despising it. It was like the sky was mocking me. I look back now and realize it was a farewell. It was the island's way of giving me a warm aloha and it drew lyrics from a local Hawaiian artist...

"Well I woke up this morning
A rainbow filled the sky
That was God telling me
Everything, everything is gonna be alright"

Jack Johnson...I don't if you've heard of him.


Now that I am back in the states, that strange far-away land called the Mainland, I can reflect on it with a happy heart. I took the heartache sitting on that airplane, knowing I was leaving behind beautiful friends and memories, rather than leaving feeling like I had regretted something. I am here in Southern California, in my old room, in my parents house. I am car less (momentarily), jobless, and sometimes a little down on myself. But I know that something is just waiting out there. I feel like I'm perched on the edge of a cliff and I'm just waiting to jump. Something is coming, I can feel it. I can see it, I just can't define the details yet.

In the meantime I want to do everything that I have never done before in LA. I want to hike up the Hollywood sign. I rode the rollercoaster at the Santa Monica pier. I want to go to the Griffith Observatory, Olvera Street, see a screening of a tv show. There's a lot here I haven't done.

Than maybe I'll go north. San Fransisco. Yup. That's where I'll go. Not because I'm chasing a greener pasture, not because I think it'll be better. But because I want to see and experience everything. There's so much out there. It's within reach, even when I think that it's not. It's there. I know it is.

If you made it this far...CHEERS. My reflections are merely an outlet. I need to get them out, otherwise my head my implode with thoughts. And we all know that if my imagination and this crazy mind of mine were let loose in the world, disastrous (or marvelous) things may happen. Either way, the world isn't ready for that just yet.

Aloha from the west coast.

Bree

Growing up

We are all growing up.

And sometimes it's easier to grow up when you have a forecast of a good outcome. But when you're left unknowing, it can make moving forward really hard.

I'm a deep pool of stress and emotion right now. I mixture of excitement, resentment, cheer, foreboding, heartbreak and joy. I don't know where I'm going, and I don't know what I'm going to do, and I'm terrified. I have dreams, but I really don't want to let my dreams be dreams. I'm trying not to. The hardest part of my transition into a new chapter is leaving Hawaii. A part of me is drawing out the process probably longer than necessary. Another part of me wants to rip it off like a bandaid. Just get it over with...but I'd rather take the heartbreak when I get on that plane knowing I'm leaving behind beautiful friends and memories, than to be in the air thinking I had made nothing of my time here.

If I even so much as see an airplane I look away. They're going to have to drag me onto that transportation device by my feet, my nails clawing into the carpet and throwing a tantrum. Sometimes I daydream about silently crying my way onto the airplane, my heart breaking into a million pieces in my chest...buckling myself in the seat, watching the clouds and the ocean roll by the window, and as they go to shut the cabin door, I stand up and scream and run to stewardess, shove her out of the way and burst into the tropical sunshine and run...and don't stop running until I hit Waimea, than sink into that deep clear water and listen to the whales. I won't. But, I can imagine.

If all goes well though (which it will, I know it...I feel it) this will be an opportunity to do something that I have always dreamed of doing. I can start with a foot on the right path and go work towards something that I have wanted to do for years. I can work in a marine related field, get up to the Bay Area and volunteer at the Marine Mammal Center. I'll make new friends, I'll have new experiences. Maybe the Bay Area will be my next Hawaii. It will all work out in the end.

But in the mean time, I have a tube of waterproof mascara and a shoulders of friends to cry on.

...Bree