putting some roots down

I can't tell you how hard it is for me not to starting planning a travel adventure when things don't go my way. Like any person addicted to something that allows them to escape, alcohol, drugs, sex, exercise, Jesus, traveling.. It comes in all forms really.

Of course the last three not physically bad for you, however they can be just as detrimental, if not more. It can be a round about game. Hidding your pain with glory of standing on the Great Wall of China or that framed photo with your arm around an orphan accenting that arm with a WWJD bracelet. But don't get me wrong, I don't think I have a real problem..
or maybe the fact that I think I don't have a problem, means I actually do? Either way, my point is that I'm trying to commit to something a little different. Instead of uprooting, I'm going to try to, root.
The options of moving, moving and moving I think I may just redirect. Instead of scurrying away to the east coast for nursing school, traveling yet again or simply running around Portland so fast I may as well be out of the country anyway, I'm actually going to try and put roots down. Of course, when people enter your life that tug at your heart a certain way, it makes that choice a little easier. But when the reality of those types of relationships arose, and their level of emotion and dubious nature I panicked.  Here's how my brain works every time, every freakin time..
"Nursing school?! YEA do that. Get away. Go change the world, you'll be too busy changing the world that you won't notice your heart is there. Go, go, go, do, do, do. AND even if love finds it way into your life you'll have so much going on that you'll be to preoccupied to notice it. WAIT, am I ready for school? I dunno. Ok job.. travel.. South America?! OR maybe random Europe? Teach English?!"

Claire. Stop it.

If you're going to go, you need to be going for the right reasons. I stressed that to myself when I left for Central America, however it ended up being an escape, but not on purpose. After that day of freak out, I really sat with the idea of staying for no other reason than to step outside my atypical comfort zone and really try to create a stable life for myself. I have had dozens different groups of friends in Portland in the past five years I've called this place home, and this time I want to really nurture the ones I feel worth it and let them grow. In other words, really give time to my Portland family.

Amazing lettering done by the one and only Bob.

mulitiple rites of passages in one weekend

Nancy and I were instant best friends. We were both new to Talbert Middle School the first day of 8th grade, so the two awkward new kids stuck together. Next thing I know we are creating "the notebook", watching Three's Company together over the phone and drinking way too many frappacinos. Then we got a little older and we were driving. Driving to the beach, concerts in LA and even all the way from Springfield, OR back to Huntington Beach. When I moved to Oregon when I was 15 and we still stayed just as close from hundreds of miles away and more than made up for it in the the summers I came back to Orange County. When we graduated high school I moved back to Orange County for awhile and we even lived together. We both had that weird year following high school and it's as though together we helped each other realize what we wanted, which happen to be almost opposite paths. Once again sticking together and never letting anything truly invade our bond.

So next thing I know I'm sitting in Laguna Beach, crying as my best friend gets married to Ryan Waldron. She looked so beautiful and the wedding had Ryan and Nancy's creative, simple and unique feel that amplified everyone's mood. So much love I have for that girl.

Arriving to the wedding, I was greeted by a loud, Americanized, tiny Vietnamese women, screaming "white daughter!!" which followed with a little but big hug and a "thanks for waiting to leave the country for your sister's wedding you crazy white girl". Nancy's mom Tina affirming the fact, I have been waiting for Nancy to get married so I can leave and go off into the world yet again.

Of course more than half the people at Nancy's wedding I had grown up with and have become another family to me so the catch up was needed and so enjoyed, but mainly interesting. Amis the typical catch up routine conversation, I had all the same responses in the fact I was leaving the next day for Nicaragua. Utter shock and baffled looks in that I was not only going there, for a long amount of time, but alone. I'm not siting here typing this to tell everyone how cool I am, or how fearless I am or what have you, but in fact do that opposite. Not only am I scared shitless about I'm leaving in 18 hours, alone, but I' realizing something in these responses. 

This collision of two different types of rites of passage, a wedding and a soon to be embarking traveler, made me stop in my tracks and catch my breath. I may be able to grab a backpack and go, but I realize I'm so scared of this.  Of agreeing to give yourself completely to someone else, forever. Or even the beginning of that, of telling someone how you feel, whenever you want, however you want. I'm not good at that. At all. 

But I'm trying. 

I'm trying not to care about being vulnerable. Of rejection. Of looking weak. So yes, I'm leaving into the world alone. But I envy the fact that you know how to.. not be alone. 

packing boxes differently this time

I have been back in America for one year and 48 days

I have lived in my current house for about 9 months

and yet again.. I pack.

I'm lucky enough to have grandparents with a massive farm that lets me store my stuff in my grandpa's old glass blowing workshops, this makes leaving the country often a tad easier. I went to my grandparents this weekend for Easter and packed a box to take with me, seeming how we have to move out of the purple house by May 31st. I've noticed the amounts of "things" I own has decreased over the years, along with that being clothes. Things really don't matter in the end, or am I getting better with letting things go? I think it's a combination of both. It's always interesting to pack up my life and stumble across old journals, notes, books etc and pack them away with a sense of nostalgia. I love reading adorable notes from friends that I saved and being taken back to some happy days when gazing at a friendship bracelet I saved from camp. With the things that triggered a sense of lose, hurt, regret, I did something out of my norm, I paused before putting that item into a box, is this feeling happy, sad, necessary? Do I really need this, does it mean anything to me anymore? No.. *throws in Goodwill box. I really am getting better at letting go rather then packing it up in a box to only let it come back to haunt me later. Exhaleeeee. Maybe letting go has triggered some growing up. I have always felt like the black sheep on my mom's side, because I am definitely my dad's child. But this weekend for the first time, I felt a bit more at home. My mom got her jewelry box out of the safe at my grandparents for my cousin and I to gawk over and my grandpa joined to inform us on all the authenticity of the metal. The little gathering of generations talking about vintage jewelry made me smile. My mom still has her wedding rings from when she was married to my dad. Handed down from my great grandma (on my dad's side), some real vintage jewelry that entwined both my parents. She wore these rings for 20 years, I forgot how beautiful they are.

A sense of connection to your blood is surreal feeling. 

ps. i love my new canon ellph.

like mother like daughter

I've been suffering a mystery illness for a good month. Ughhh. I'm not a big fan of doctors because most of them treat the symptoms and not the cause, not to mention I'm one of the millions of American's without health care. With a combination of my general science/health knowledge and my hippie mother I try to overcome what most people go to the doctor for.

Being in bed all day today I was not ashamed at 22 years old that I needed my mommy, and I sought the mother bird. Mom picked me up, bought me some my favorite Thai soup, made me some of her special tea, fed me her hippie remedies, put on the reggae music and I'm feeling a bit better.



I sit here on Friday night, catching up on homework, since the past two days I was bed ridden, happy I'm feeling better and laughing at my current observation. Although, like every mother and daughter, my mom and I butt heads. But I can't deny the similarities of mommma trips and I, those main traits being our strong independence and love for solo time. She set her plans back a few hours to tend to me, which was to go to a concert with her boyfriend. He canceled and she doesn't bat an eye, and is out the door to go see Midnite. I love that.. and laugh because I would do that same.

Every guy I have dated, it is an absolute must that they understand my love for me time and my solo missions. Kinda funny my last blog was about me loving a solo Sunday night. It warms my heart to see some of the traits that make me who I am, in the person from where they came from.

xx freebird