Where to Begin?

Where do I begin? Once again, the years have slipped by without a single post. I didn’t expect that—from myself or from life. So many dreams and assumptions now seem naïve in retrospect. I used to believe the world worked a certain way. That if you were honest, worked hard, and followed the rules, good things would follow. Recognition, opportunities, maybe even a sense of peace. But that’s not quite how it went.

Alongside my dream of being a teacher, I also dreamed of being a writer. In high school, writing felt like magic—an act of creation that could make you timeless. I thought I’d become one of the greats. University quickly humbled that ambition. Even back then—before AI—I realized people weren’t reading much anymore. Why would the world need another writer? I shelved the dream. It wasn’t that I lacked a desire to be a writer, maybe just the willingness to sacrifice so much for a dream that might only be realized posthumously—like Emily Dickinson, who never saw her own fame. I didn’t want to lose myself in the dream; I wanted to live the story, not just write it.

So I chased another dream—the one where I moved to Europe. I know I’ve written about it on this blog before, though I can’t recall the exact post. Growing up, I lived between two worlds: the U.S., where my parents raised me, and Romania, where I spent summers with my grandparents in the countryside. Those summers were magical, but they made me wonder: which place was really home and who was I?

Anyone who knew me back then remembers my passionate ideas about Romania (apologies to anyone subjected to my long rants). I studied the country’s post-communist challenges and couldn’t understand why so many people seemed hopeless about its future. I wanted to prove that it didn’t have to be that way. Maybe if more people like me moved back, things could change.

So we did. In 2018, my husband and I packed our lives—Gatsby our dog included—and moved to Romania. I started teaching at an international school, thinking I could help shape future leaders. That hope didn’t last. I quit that job a few months ago, heartbroken. It was one of my biggest professional disappointments.

I remember joining in the August 10th protest that summer, hopeful for change. But hope gave way to loss soon after. I experienced death in my family. I saw corruption up close. I realized that many of the institutions that claimed to stand for something better were just hollow. It reminded me of a man I once met in an airport, a Romanian who had moved back only to have his business fail because of corruption. Back then, I dismissed his bitterness. Now, I understand it.

Still, maybe this isn’t just about Romania—or California. Maybe it’s about growing up.

I spent so much of my twenties in anticipation. I longed to leave L.A.’s chaos for Romania’s authenticity. And for a while, the move felt right. But then my sister-in-law died. Then came the pandemic. Then two babies. And slowly, I found myself missing California—missing a version of myself.

Last summer, I went back. I even took my young daughter. We did it all—Disneyland, Sea World, Lake Arrowhead, Build-a-Bear, In-N-Out. We drove through every neighborhood I’d ever called home. Each street, each school, each corner of my past unfolded like a memory reel. The strange part? Most of the people I once knew no longer lived there. So why did it feel like home?

Because I wasn’t chasing a place—I was chasing a version of me. A younger self, untouched by loss and full of certainty. That confident girl still lived in those memories, and revisiting them felt like reconnecting with a part of my soul.

Now, I’m older. Realism has edged out idealism. I left my job—one I once believed in completely. I didn’t even take maternity leave because I thought the mission mattered so much. In the end, it was just another business. That truth hurt more than I expected.

And so, I find myself here. Unemployed—something I never thought I’d be. With two young children and a world that feels increasingly uncertain. I’m no longer in my twenties, and the road ahead seems less wide open, less full of daring possibility. These days, I crave stability more than change. I think about healthcare and schools more than ideals and dreams. The countryside life I once yearned for seems impractical now.

I thought Romania would be the key to happiness. I thought California was something I had to leave behind. But maybe happiness isn’t in the place. Maybe it’s in recognizing what you had, what you have, and what you still carry with you. Maybe it’s about learning to live here—really live—not in anticipation, not in regret, but in presence.

I still don’t know exactly where I’m headed. The path isn’t as clear or full of promise as it once seemed—but maybe that’s okay. What I do know is that I need to keep writing. Not for recognition. Not for some long-lost ambition. Just to find clarity. Just to keep steady. Writing helps me hear myself think.

So I’m here again. Not to chase a dream, but to reconnect with something real. To show up on the page, honestly—because that, at least, still feels like home.

Beginnings and Endings

I’ve written at least ten drafts of this post. Perhaps one might have expected a reflection to come much sooner. After all, I did fulfill my dream of moving to Europe, right? Well, that part still holds true. I did move to Europe, and the experience has been fulfilling in many ways. I started out writing this post on that topic—about my experience moving, about integrating into my new community, about looking for a house, dealing with bureaucracy, etc. etc. Looking back now, though, it feels like a hazy dream from a long, long time ago. You see, at that time, I was still a child in so many ways. And now, well…now everything in my life has been darkened beneath the shadow of tremendous loss. In a span of exactly three months I lost two of the most important women in my life. And with them, so went my childhood.

I didn’t fully realize this until that fateful Thursday on the 27^th of September, but my grandmother was like an entire universe for me—I don’t think I’d be exaggerating to say that she represented my entire childhood. When I was a baby, she took care of me while my parents worked during the week. When my parents sent me to Romania during my childhood summers, hers was the house that I most loved to spend my summer days. Though her body was weakened and bent by the passing of many years, she had a fierce energy about her. She was playful and wise and she took care of me as though I were her own daughter.

Until I was seventeen, my grandmother would sleep on the edge of the bed to better see the t.v. (she had to have a full view of the politicians, of course) and I would sleep pinned between her and the wall so that I couldn’t leave without her knowing (this was because I was a girl and my grandmother was still in the 1890s). I can still hear the way she’d drag her feet as she walked to the front gate to check if anyone of note was passing by. She was always very aware of everything that was going on. My grandmother used to say that I had the honor to be enrolled in her “shenanigan school” since she taught me a few curse words and showed me how to pull some crazy pranks. One summer, there was a meteor shower and my grandmother and I spent the entire night lying outside on the grass (with pillow, blankets, and two kittens) watching the stars fall. Another time, she bought me some fireworks and we accidentally lit one upside down – that night, there was a huge crater in the yard and a lot of dirt in places it wasn’t supposed to be. My grandmother used to lovingly call my grandfather a “stuffed turkey” and she almost passed out laughing when I introduced her to the whoopee cushion.

Oh, there are so many pleasant memories associated with my grandmother and my summers at her house. That was the place where I felt most free and it truly felt like I had a magical childhood far away from the cares of the world. When I found out that I was moving to Romania, she was the person I wanted to tell right away. But when I saw her in August, she wasn’t the same. She had lost almost half of her body weight and she couldn’t get out of bed. My uncle had extended his stay in Romania to take care of her. Though the sight of her was shocking at first, her jokes and her spirit made us all forget that she was sick. We had no doubt that she would be on her feet again. After all, she always did say that death wouldn’t come for her because she had too much work to do.

But we were naïve to think that things would get better. Sometimes I ask myself how we could possibly imagine that a woman in her eighties who had not eaten solid food for two months would ever recover. This naïve attitude is what made it impossible for me to realize that the time I saw her at the hospital would be the last time that I would see her alive. At that point, she could not speak. She could not even move her head to look at us properly. I was biting my tongue to the point of tasting blood so that I would not cry in front of her. But she knew that I was there. The nurse asked her if she knew who I was, and she struggled to say my name. I knew she didn’t want me to see her like that. She always tried to protect me from “old age and death” as she always made excuses for me to avoid funerals and sick people.

I was clumsy at the hospital. I’m grateful to my husband for having his characteristic clarity of mind to reassure my grandmother about everything that was going on and to tell her that we all loved her. All I could think about was how to walk around her bed without tripping on the wires coming from her body or banging my purse against the side of the bed. I did get a chance to show her my Romanian ID, and I’m happy she was able to know that I had moved back since I knew that for twenty-five years she lived upon the hope that her children would return to her. I messed it up after that by telling her she had a lot of holes in her arm from the IV—she looked a little worried and I told her it was okay (feeling like a doofus nonetheless).  Then, I told her goodbye and I let her know we would be coming to see her later that week when she would be better—I did not doubt that things would be that way.

That Thursday, I received that stinging phone call from my parents and everything was irrevocably changed. I stood outside of my grandmother’s house for three hours before I could go in to see her. She was wearing the dress she wore to my wedding. She looked so alive that it seemed that her chest would fill at any moment and she would rise to greet us and ask if we had eaten anything. I waited for that to happen, but, as you’d expect, the searing reality was that it wouldn’t ever happen again. I could hear my grandfather repeating the story of some of her final words; she had asked for him and told him to get a haircut. He started the story off grinning, but the grin morphed into tears. My heart broke as I saw my grandfather mourn for the woman he had spent a lifetime with. How could one spend over sixty years with someone and then suddenly find a way to exist again? The pain was unbearable. I cried until I felt the wells behind my eyes dry up. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Even now when I drive from Bucharest to my grandparents’ house in the country, I tear up thinking that I wanted her to enjoy the fact that I could do that. Instead, I’m driving toward a cold, hard gravestone. There is no more joy left there. My heart used to beam with happiness when I’d cross the train tracks into my grandmother’s village, but now the air there is so thick with nostalgia that it’s almost unbreathable. 

When I returned home to Bucharest after the funeral, my sister-in-law cried with me. She understood the heaviness of my loss, just as she understood so many other things about me. My sister-in-law wasn’t an easy person to get close to, but, over the years, we had become best friends and she was the only sister I have ever known. She was so kind and patient with me. She welcomed my husband and me when we moved to Romania and we lived with her until we found our own house. She so lovingly prepared a room for us and for Gatsby. Out of everyone, I think she was the most concerned about me adjusting to life in Romania. So she went to great lengths to ensure that I would be okay. She helped me with all of my paperwork, and she made many plans for me so that I wouldn’t get a chance to get homesick. She made a road trip out of my husband’s business trip to Oradea, she took us to see our first play in Romania, she took me on a boat ride in Herastrau Park, she took me on a walking tour of the old city center, she took me on a Bucharest bus tour (the London-inspired double-decker bus tour), she took me shopping for work clothes (and gave me many pep talks upon starting my first job in Romania), she planned a fabulous Halloween party, and she would have planned an extraordinary Thanksgiving feast if it hadn’t been for her Stage IV Breast Cancer.

No one will ever know how much pain my sister-in-law was in because she was such a strong person and she loved her family too much to let them share in her pain. As this stupid cancer was tearing her apart inside, she greeted us with so much love in her eyes and the warmest of smiles. In some weird way, her strength had convinced us that she could beat terminal cancer. Again…we had all naively forgotten the definition of the word “terminal.” My birthday came three weeks before her death. For some, it was the last time they would see her. We could tell she was in visible pain, but she was the first to dance, just as she had been on so many other occasions. That is who she was; she was a beam of joy in every room she walked in, and I don’t think she ever realized how much happiness she brought to the people around her.

On December 21^st, she went to work, but she didn’t feel well. She had developed ascites and had to go to the emergency room to get the fluid drained from her abdomen. When she came home from the hospital, she said that she would die. I, again in that stupid naïve fashion, assumed she spoke this way out of frustration. She lay on the couch and said that, “people have different types of luck in life. Some people win the lottery and some people die. Why couldn’t I have just won the lottery?” I didn’t know what to say. What could I have said? I had stopped spewing clichés like “it will be ok” or “you’ll get through this” because all of us had already used those up during her first battle with cancer and the clichés hit us right back in the face when the cancer returned. What did we know? We were all so small and so useless in those final days. There wasn’t anything we could do.

On Christmas day, my sister-in-law was somewhat better (though I guess that’s an overstatement) and she called us to her room to open our Christmas presents. She loved holidays and, despite her pain and the unimaginable thoughts she must have been having at the time, she wanted us to have our Christmas moment. We all opened our gifts. She even managed to smile and thank us all for hers. My brother-in-law got her a necklace that she squeezed in her fist as she lay down to rest. She wore that necklace the day she was buried. We left her alone for a while to give her some air and space.

Some time had passed, and we busied ourselves with whatever we could around the house. I was in the kitchen scrolling through some article on my phone when my husband and brother-in-law frantically came to bring me into the living room. My sister-in-law was lying on the sofa. My brain could not process the images it was receiving quickly enough for anything to make sense. By looking at my sister-in-law, I wouldn’t have realized what was happening, but I could see it from the looks on my husband’s and brother-in-law’s faces. There was the sense that something, something big, was happening. I felt like shouting at my sister-in-law. I wanted to yell for her to get up, but the others were so calm and everything they said to her was almost a whisper, so I didn’t dare make a sound. I could not believe how calm they were. In reality, they were probably freaking out too, but all of their efforts in those moments were focused on making my sister-in-law comfortable.

She told us she loved us and she said she was going home. There was a peaceful silence as we watched her breathe. My mind was racing as I tried to grasp at this strange reality unfolding before me. But then my thoughts were interrupted by the sound of her voice; she asked to be taken to the bedroom. We watched her for a long time, hanging on her every breath. I remembered reading an article after my grandmother’s death about the process of actively dying—one of the telltale signs was the “death rattle.” I convinced myself that I couldn’t be hearing such a thing in my sweet sister-in-law’s labored breathing. She asked my brother-in-law for water and I helped him pull her up. She felt so frail as I realized that she would not be able to sit upright without someone holding her. I stood next to her, hoping that in some absurd way I could give her some of my energy. She put the palm of her hand over mine and gently stroked my fingers with all of the strength that she had. I can barely remember the timeline of these events, but I’ll never forget the feeling of her hand over mine.

Another thing I will never forget is seeing my brother-in-law’s courage in those final days. I had never seen a true goodbye between lovers in real life, only in movies. I expected him to cry, to scream, to curse the heavens…but he didn’t do any of that. He caressed her skin, he kissed her forehead, and he whispered to her that it would be okay for her to go if she felt she had to. I knew that every fiber of his being wanted her to stay, but he would not let himself display even a drop of selfishness. All he thought about in those moments was making her feel at peace, making her feel love, and making her feel safe. He was such a strong man in those final moments. It was one of the most beautiful and heartbreaking things I had ever seen.

My husband asked her if she wanted us to send for a priest, she adamantly refused (which made us think there was hope) and she asked to be left to rest for a while. We started making phone calls…just in case. As people poured into the house, I preoccupied myself with making coffees and teas. My father-in-law didn’t leave his daughter’s side and my stomach flip-flopped as I imagined the pain a parent must feel upon seeing their child so helpless and knowing there was nothing he could do for his little girl. He didn’t say anything, but I was certain that he was envisioning my sister-in-law as a small child with beaming brown eyes and luscious brown ringlets falling on either side of her face. How could we save his little girl?

Some people outside were commenting that no one recovers from ascites. They made it onto my blacklist and I couldn’t wait for them to leave—that was not an option. Somehow, we made it through the night. When we realized my sister-in-law was stable, people started going to sleep one by one.

In the morning, I was afraid to ask questions. When I entered the living room, they told me she was better than the night before. I felt a weight lifted from my shoulders. There was hope. A few hours later, her abdomen had swelled again. My brother-in-law called an ambulance. Chaos ensued as the sound of sirens mixed with the agitation of finding my sister-in-law’s medical records and making room for the gurney inside the house. They lifted her away and outside into the cold winter air. She was wearing her favorite “Bazinga” t-shirt and a pair of my pajama pants. I worried that she was cold, but they put her inside the ambulance quickly—I didn’t dare allow myself to consider if this would be the last time she’d see her home.

Knowing that hospitals are strict about visitation hours, I stayed behind with my mother-in-law. The best thing I could think of was to clean the house. My sister-in-law was a neat freak, and it became my priority to ensure that the house would be spotless when she’d return. We scrubbed the floors, washed her clothes to ensure she’d have fresh ones to change into, and we changed her bed sheets. The hours passed. My husband and brother-in-law came home that night saying she had been stabilized and that they would be allowed to see her again early the next morning.

More hours passed. It was Thursday, the 27^th. At around eleven in the morning, my husband and brother-in-law came back from the hospital in high spirits. She was in less pain as they had given her morphine. We were all very optimistic. If she would get through this hurdle, she would be okay. We would ensure that her liver would get treated to prevent the fluid build-up, and then we would focus on recovery. Things would get better. So the four of us (me, my husband, my brother-in-law, and my husband’s aunt) got in the car and headed toward the hospital, as visiting hours would begin at one o’clock.

We were three minutes away from the hospital when my brother-in-law received the dreaded phone call. I don’t know what they said to him, but we all felt the world shatter before us as our car floated across the intersection. The worst had happened. My dear sister-in-law’s kind heart had lost the power to keep beating. How could I turn back time? I remembered that my brother-in-law was the first person I saw after finding out about my grandmother’s death—he hugged me and tried to comfort me. And now? How could this be happening to him? My heart broke as I saw him processing the news. My husband had just learned that his beloved sister was gone. What would I say to him? Tears drenched my sweater and it became hard to breathe. I felt like my clothes were tightening around my body. I clenched my fists trying to stop time…to find a rewind button…but the minutes kept rolling by and we entered the hospital parking lot. My mother-in-law and father-in-law were waiting for us at the entrance so that we could go in together—they were still expecting the one o’clock visiting hours that we had previously discussed. I saw their calm faces—they hadn’t found out about their little girl. The dreadful job fell upon my poor husband whose poor soul was being crushed with every step he took.

I’m not sure how we made it up the stairs. I remember wails and salty tears mixing as we all tried to get a hold of ourselves. My husband’s uncle slammed his fist into the concrete hospital wall. One by one, they were going in to see her. I couldn’t go. Seeing her lifeless body would confirm that everything was really true, and I wasn’t ready for that.

The next few days were a blur for the entire family. I think the only thing that helped us make it through the next few days until the funeral was denial. I think we all half expected that this would be over soon and my sister-in-law would walk through the door again to be the first to dance.

More than half a year has passed, and it’s sinking in more and more that this is our new reality. I feel the pain of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, I feel pain for myself. I regret that I no longer have a sister. We had so many plans to do so many things, to see so many places, to raise families together…and it’s hard to accept that that can’t happen anymore. But even more painful is the realization that her time was cut off so soon. She was only thirty-four. She had her entire life ahead of her. I would agree to never speak to her again if I could know she could come back to finish her story properly. Everywhere we go, there is a great void left by her absence. Fate was so cruel to her.

And what are we left to do? All we can do is live each day as it comes to us. Whenever I feel overwhelmed by grief and sadness, I try to think of what my sister-in-law would have wanted for each of us. She would have wanted us to live. She would have wanted us to live fiercely and to enjoy every breath of air, every blade of grass, every ray of sun. I think that the best way to honor her memory would be to do my best to live this way. I believe that her spirit lives on through us. She touched our lives in so many ways, and I think it’s our job to be better people for her. She always dreamed of a better and kinder world. So I want us to be better and kinder people. And if there is anything we should have learned from her, it’s that we should always strive to be the first to dance.

I’m still struggling to make sense of the aftermath of my grandmother’s and sister’s deaths. However, though I expected to feel the overwhelming sense of their absence, I still strongly feel their presence with me. And I truly think the best I can do is to try to take their lessons with me wherever I go and I will carry them in my heart forever. 

Adventure Awaits

          Well hello again. Well, it seems that I must once again fall into my apologetic rant for not having written for a while. Oh, but the joy it would bring me to have the time to write...and not just to doodle some thoughts on a page, but I'd like to actually have the time to write and re-write and then to truly think about the craft of writing as I did in my college years. Heck, I'd like to take on my old hobbies. There was a time when I used to paint, to draw, to crochet...I loved to express myself creatively. Lately, my main creative outlet is figuring out which side streets I can take to get to work on time (cringe).

         I've been admitting this to myself for some time now. I'm burnt out. I've poured my heart and soul into my work and, fulfilling as it is, I've lost a part of myself. Now, granted, this is quite the first-world problem. And, in fact, I've truly come to appreciate how fortunate I am to even be able to say that this is my main problem. I am so fortunate to have options. And, by options, I mean having the ability to choose what kind of life I can (more or less) live. I have the possibility of embarking upon the extravagant endeavor of creating a better life for myself. Not many people can say this. I've come to realize that most people out there who are bitter and miserable never had a choice. Most people start off with lofty dreams, but most of those people are forced to downsize, or push aside altogether, those dreams at the expense of merely making ends meet. I think of the image of an overworked, middle-aged person slaving through the daily drudgery of some suburban reality to provide for her family instead of living out her dreams. This is, all too often, a generic life story (albeit a tragic one). And the thought of this being my story terrifies me.
        I wrote a blog almost a year ago discussing this idea, and I mentioned the fact that I realized that I was not living up to what my teenaged self would have imagined. I realized that I had been talking about Romania to the tune of a broken record without actually taking any measures to make that dream a reality. And, as I approach the next decade of my life, I've realized that the time really is now. If I don't do it, no one will do it for me. So, yes, I concluded almost a year ago that I would take action. I'll admit, I wrote that blog entry more so to commit myself to action than I did to inform anyone of any concrete plan. At the heart of that entry was the fear that I might succumb to my fear of change and the threat of instability. However, the idea of my life story being about unfulfilled dreams was a terrifying one. I read an aphorism at some point in my early school days that went something like this: You will regret the things you didn't do far more than you will regret the things you did do. It's always been in the back of my mind. I don't want to lie on my deathbed with regrets. I don't want the best stories to be those fictive tales I teach to my English classes, and I certainly don't like the idea that my life has already reached some sort of peak as far as adventures go. Thus, I am excited to announce that I've finally done it. I have gone forth in the direction of my dreams. I am finally moving to Romania.
        If you personally know me, you will know that I've toyed with the theory of this idea for like fifteen years. I've played out the ensuing conversations in my head hundreds of times, but, this time, it's for real. S and I (and our beloved dog Gatsby) are moving in the summer. I have officially informed my employers that this year is my last and I am in the process of figuring out a contract for my next job in the city of my birth - Bucharest. And, what's more? Four boxes full of my precious earthly possessions are making their way across the Atlantic as I'm writing these words. Excuse my French, but the shit just got real. Is it frightening? Absolutely! Though I've travelled to Europe every year for the last twenty years, I've never actually lived there, nor have I ever truly given up the comforts of home. It's scary to think about how difficult it may be to adjust. But, I'd probably be a big hypocrite if I didn't try to expand my horizons. Will I fit in? I don't know. There are many unknowns, and I can only hope that things will turn out well. Though I have my apprehensions, the idea of taking  on this adventure is exhilarating in so many ways. I'm throwing myself into a sea of unknowns, but I cannot wait to see what these new adventures will have in store. Stay tuned.

Go Confidently in the Direction of Your Dreams!

            Well...it's been over a year. I cannot help noticing that several of my posts begin with my explanations for extended absences from the blog world. Well...frankly, I doubt anyone cares much for these explanations, so is there a point in giving them? I have not written in over a year. True. Well, fear not, I am alive and well.
            But, to fill you in: I have been extremely of late. My excuse, actually, is rather lame: work. A younger version of myself would cringe to think that I would be so consumed with a job. I've been working nights, weekends, and odd hours. I sit in Los Angeles traffic for about two hours each day. I get five hours of sleep each night. I drink more coffee than water. I'm too busy to even trim my split ends. My entire person has all but been consumed in striving to succeed in my career. But, in my defense, I don't slave away in a cramped cubicle all day. No. I march each day toward a complicated battlefield where I daily battle the demons of ignorance and ambivalence. I am a High School English teacher.
              This has been a dream of mine for years, and I am actually quite happy to be fulfilling it. Sure, there are days in which I find myself an inch away from literally thrusting my head against a wall. However, there are also a few days when my heart glimmers with pride when I see young minds suspended in radiant wonder at the sheer power of ideas. Those are the days that make my job worthwhile. I love to see students learning to think for themselves. I love to see students learning to make meaning out of the chaos around them. And I love to see students building the confidence to live their lives deliberately.
              Despite all of this, however, I am tired. In some ways, I feel like I've lost some sense of direction when it comes to my own life. You see, one thing I've learned from being a teacher is that there are so many bad parents out there. Usually, I'm not one to judge - especially considering that I've yet to experience parenthood. However, I see kids that are broken every day. There are kids whose parents aren't adequately preparing them for life, kids whose parents don't know how to show them love, and kids whose parents have shattered every shadow of self-confidence those kids ever dared to possess. My own heart shatters for those poor kids, and I stay up every night trying to find ways to help prepare them for life as best as I can. It's a noble pursuit, for sure. But, it has left me very tired emotionally, physically, and spiritually. The worst part of it comes with the realization that I cannot even begin to affect all of my students in the ways that I want to.
             Don't get me wrong, these kids are certainly worth fighting for. But I need to take care of myself too. You see, I've been literally pouring all of my energy into this job. As a result, I've stopped writing, I've stopped painting, I've stopped dreaming. Thus, I've been losing a little part of myself. I've mentioned this in previous blogs, but I had a very strong sense of direction when I was in high school myself. What I realized when I was in my students' position was that life is short and I knew that the one thing I was to never do was to stop fighting to live the life I wanted. I remember the day  I first read works by Henry David Thoreau as a junior. He said, "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined." I told myself that I would live by this. I even introduced my own juniors to Thoreau. But, what if I am becoming a sham? Am I truly still living by this?
          Ever since I was in high school, I had this unwavering idea that the life I'd imagined was a simple life in Romania. I imagined a quaint, little house surrounded by nature. I dreamed of discovering who I would have been if I hadn't left Romania. And, frankly, after all of these years, this curiosity still flickers in the depths of my soul. Actually, that flicker has been burning brighter and brighter to the point that I'm actually looking for ways to make this a reality. And, as time passes and I grow older, I'm realizing that this won't happen unless I actually do something about it. I heard myself speaking to my aunt one day. I was telling her of my desire to be in Romania and I realized that this was the 100th time I had discussed this with her (as I do with most of my family). It dawned on me that I was probably starting to sound like a broken record as I always talked about my desire to be there while I was discontented with my life here. I'm all talk with no action.  I always tell people that things don't just happen, but that we make them happen. And yet, look at me. I dream. I imagine living the rest of my days here and I feel suffocated, but what am I doing to change this?
         So what if I did just go confidently in the direction of my dreams? What if I just left? As the people around me age and grow frail, I can't help but realize that life is short and tomorrow isn't guaranteed. The longer I stand in one place, the more I lose my courage to move. Why am I so afraid? Especially when the old me was the one to chase adventures? 11th grade me would be yelling at me to lift the anchor and spread the sails. But I do know why I am afraid. All of my life I was Miss Goody Two-Shoes. I always fantasized about being an adventure-seeker, but, in reality, I was always planning for the future and taking calculated risks. And, at this crossroad of my life, I am afraid of setting myself back. I am afraid of failure and misdirection. I've never significantly failed at anything and I worry about messing up my future. Someone (okay, fine, a therapist I saw once) asked me what I had to lose. I proceeded to enumerate a lengthy list of things: financial security, career path, the ability to purchase a home, etc. She reminded me that people fail all the time, and she reminded me that I was an educated woman who would always be able to find some sort of job to pick myself up. Which, in theory, is true. But, in many ways, I am a coward (which isn't a word I like to believe describes me).
         So, what am I going to do? I can spend more days talking to my aunt about how I wish to build a quaint, little house somewhere surrounded by nature. I could continue to dread traffic and imagine myself somewhere else while my life slips away on the freeway. I could continue to spend my hours working for a paycheck. Is this what will make me happy? Will I look back on my life someday and consider this the best version of my life? I honestly think that I would live to regret no knowing what might have been. Thus, I have decided. Next summer, I'm going to finally purchase that one-way ticket. It will be terrifying to not know what the future has in store, but isn't that what makes life exciting? I will consciously choose to go confidently in the direction of my dreams. And I will live the life I have always imagined.

A Child Destined to Learn Hard Lessons

I was thinking about something today. There was this commercial for Ziploc bags on tv where a mother thinks about how her daughter needs a bag of marbles and she imagines that if she uses a subpar bag, the daughter will have a bunch of marbles falling out of her locker. This reminded me of the fact that, at some point, children will all have that experience: the embarrassment of having a bunch of marbles fall all over the floor in front of everyone in the locker room. Okay, so maybe not every child will have that exact experience; but they will have some sort of other embarrassment or disappointment. There will be a moment when every child will encounter a situation that isn't fair, and eventually that child's mommy will have to explain to that child that there is nothing she can do to fix the unfairness. The world isn't fair. In fact, it's rather brutal. Life is violent and unpredictable, the good guy doesn't always win in the end, actually the bad guy wins a lot, not everyone gets what they deserve, sometimes giving your all isn't enough, most times shit will happen, friends are unreliable, family can be taken away at any moment, and, ultimately, most individuals are rather insignificant. A child will spend the next years on the road to adulthood learning and re-learning this lesson: life is not fair. Etc. etc. My heart always breaks when I hear a child genuinely cry, "It's not fair!"

I think about this sometimes, especially when I look at little kids. I think about this a lot when I spend time with my little cousin, N. He's a sweetheart, but sometimes I feel like he's too innocent for his own good. He believes that the world is fair and he trusts that the adults around him can make things right. That's exactly how I was when I was a kid, and learning how wrong my worldview was turned out to be very devastating. And when I think about N having to go through the same thing a few years down the line, it saddens me. I remember one incident, for example, when a younger boy was playing with N and that boy was making a lot of trouble for him. He played very roughly and eventually hit N  with a carrot right in his temple. A lot of the adults around didn't realize that N was actually hit rather badly (I saw it) and they ended up saying it was okay and that he, since he was older, had to understand that the little boy didn't know what he was doing. That's when I saw N's face curl up and his tears started flowing long before he could get any words out. He was so baffled by the situation that all he could do was cry. When others tried to tell him he was overreacting, he kept yelling that it wasn't fair. And, I could relate. This other little boy had wronged him and, because the boy was younger, N had to let it go. This didn't make sense to N because he knew that if he hurt another kid, he would be punished. What bothered him most, though, was that none of the adults were doing anything to make the situation fair. But, as I said, life isn't fair--and N will be learning that lesson again and again.
You know, there was a time when S told me that I was cutting cucumbers too thickly and N got very protective of me. He told S that he should be thankful that I was cooking for them and that if he doesn't appreciate me as a wife, he would marry me when he grows up and he would be happy with everything I do. N was only like 6 years old at the time, and yet he was trying to make the world fair for me. How can that not tug on my heartstrings??
Ok, one more story and I'll get back on track--a while ago, N's grandmother died. N, S, and I were at N and my grandparents' house and I woke up and passed through N's room and he was sleeping. For some reason I got a bad feeling when I saw him and I decided to sit on the bed with him and I eventually dozed off. I woke up to the sound of the phone ringing and I instinctively knew that it was news of his grandmother. I cried, right there next to him as he was sleeping. It was so unfair. This poor little boy's grandmother had just died and he had no idea. I didn't know how he would take it. A few weeks later, his parents came and they told him. I expected tears and tantrums. But no, he just laid in bed and stared intently at the ceiling all day. He literally did not move for hours as though he was still processing the information. When he saw me pass by, he told me that his grandmother had died. He did it so calmly that I had to wonder if this was a kid or some old man in a little person's body. I think about those moments a lot.

Anyway, after all those tangents...I think you get what I'm trying to say.  I have a sensitive spot for child suffering; I especially hate to see children witness the unfairness of the world. This makes me think about the children in my future. Sometimes I wonder, how can I ever be a mother when I know how horrible the world can be? When my child looks at me for answers through teary eyes, will I have the heart to lie to the kid and say that everything will be ok? How can I know if everything will be ok? Especially when, most often, it isn't ok. How will I ever be able to explain, to an innocent child who completely and wholeheartedly trusts in every word I say, that the world is far from perfect and it's full of people who can be cruel and unjust? Sometimes I wonder if it's even fair to have children when I know how hard life can be. I don't know. I can't imagine how painful that part of motherhood is when you have to tell your child that life is not as perfect and fair as they imagined. I really wish that everyone in the world would just get together and create a better world for our children to inherit.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Someone I know once said something along the lines of "childhood is like the paradise we are all destined to lose in one way or another." I thought it was cheesy then, but maybe I was still in my later stages of childhood at the time- who knows? Come to think of it though, applying the Genesis allegory to childhood proves rather insightful. There are a lot of similarities between Eden and childhood. Most striking, of course, is that knowledge inevitably banishes us from Eden almost literally.

It used to annoy me when people talked about how children are innocent, have no care in the world, and how everything was so much easier and happier as a child (of course, I've realized that not all can relate to this image of childhood unfortunately). But I've come to see that this is largely very true. When I look at pictures of children I know, the way they smile is much different than the way that adults smile. When children are happy, their entire bodies radiate a complete happiness whereas when adults are happy, their smiles seem more like a momentary distraction from the darker realities of life.

When I think about my own experience of life, I feel like I am generally happy and grateful for everything that I have--but at the same time, there is this constant awareness of the general sadness and cruelty in the world that I cannot get out of my mind. Even when my life is at its high points (and I have literally no reason to feel anything but happiness), I am still reminded of the fact that other people are suffering and that life is hard for everyone. And life is hard. It is so much more brutal than I had imagined it as a child (and I say this with the recognition that I have been much luckier than most). From the moment we are born, we are all destined to endless toiling with loss, tragedy, disappointments, inadequacies, etc. Sure, much of it has to do with the fact that humans suffer from chronic dissatisfaction- but at the same time, that dissatisfaction isn't always unwarranted.

A lot of shit happens throughout the course of one's life. And while many philosophies and religions try to explain these things by referring to a greater plan or purpose, there are still many things that I don't think can be explained. Like why are some innocent children born into misery? Why do some parents lose their child much before their time? Why do some people lose their jobs when they're barely making ends meet? Why are some people disfigured or diseased in the very prime of their life? And why do so few people ever realize the full extent of their potential? Etc. etc. There are many things like this that I don't understand. You see, I understand suffering…but I don't understand why there is so much pointless suffering.

I borrowed the title for my blog post from the title of a book I've been meaning to read by Milan Kundera. With limited knowledge of the book's content, I'm still very fascinated by the title since I feel that it perfectly describes the nuances of adult life. Most times, it does feel that there is an unbearable lightness to just being. It's as if we all float through this thick atmosphere of sadness against which we are completely powerless. All we can do is find some funny joke, moment of happiness, or memory of better times in order to distract us from our painful suspension within this atmosphere that we didn't even ask to get thrown into in the first place. I truly cannot understand why there is so much suffering and sadness in the world. Sometimes I think it has to do with money, or power, or greed - but it's much more complicated than that and it most often seems rather random and unexplainable.

I may sound like I'm trying to get at some sort of answer or truth about life -- but the truth is that people have been trying to understand suffering for thousands of years and I'm definitely not about to come up with some sort of prophetic understanding. At most, all I can do is contribute my own questions and musing to this never-ending quest to understand life and its hardships.

All that I really know is that the beauty of childhood (for those who are lucky enough to retain their innocence long enough) is the fact that children are oblivious to the crude suffering and sadness that is a part of life. It is the fact that when an adult tells a child that "everything will be ok," that child can still whole-heartedly believe that everything will be ok. Children have the capacity to see beauty untainted by the harsher realities of life. That is why I think it is very accurate to compare childhood to paradise--in many ways, it is a paradise. And yet, the knowledge of reality that inevitably comes with maturity is what marks the end of childhood. From then on, I suppose that, as one ages, one only becomes ever more aware of how far from paradise real life truly is. I wonder if part of the desire to have children (apart from the biological desire) has to do with adults longing to see the world through a child's eyes? Maybe having children provides satisfaction, not just for perpetuating one's line etc, but also because it allows the parents to revisit, to some extent, their lost paradise through the eyes of their children?

Inside the Minds Behind the Sadness

There is unfettered sadness in the world. Growing up, I remember being taught history as though the events of the past were in the past. When I learned about wars or genocides, I believed them to be a memory of long ago that would be impossible today. But that couldn't be farther from the truth. It's shocking really. If you think about it, nothing at all has changed in the world. There is still violence, rape, brutality, dishonesty, and barbarity. I just don't understand how it's possible.

As I searched for pictures from the 1940s for inspiration for my writing, I stumbled upon a collection of pictures from the Holocaust. One needn't even look at pictures of dead bodies to be shocked since the bodies of the people who were alive didn't look much different from their dead counterparts. Those poor poor people were so frail and impossibly thin. Their eyes were drained of all hopefulness as robust soldiers laughed and grimaced in the background. How could humanity allow such a thing? How could one see a pile of mangled corpses the size of a mountain and still believe that this was the right thing to do? I saw pictures of workers pushing corpses into ovens as though they were loaves of bread. Seeing this in pictures is bad enough, but the fact that there are still people alive who have witnessed this makes me realize just how recent the Holocaust was. It's not a thing of the distant past…no, it happened during my grandparents' lifetimes.

But that's just one event. I couldn't possibly recount the atrocious events like the Holocaust that have been and still are going on since even just the 2000s. I cannot begin to process the idea that people are still being crudely tortured as I write this. Personally, I don't even know the full extent of the tragedies of modern warfare. Honestly, it's a lot more difficult to look at contemporary war photographs than it is to look at the ones from World War II. The older ones are black and white and grainy--which filters part of the gruesomeness of the objects depicted. Today's pictures, however, are too detailed and the blood is simply too red for me to handle.

It saddens me to see how fragile human bodies are and how cruel other humans are to allow the meaningless slaughters of someone else's father, mother, son, daughter, lover, husband, friend, etc. Actually…it's not even that necessarily. When I think of it, if someone places another human being next to me (of whatever color, race, gender, creed, or belief system), just the fact that that human has a body like mine, a mind like mine, and the shared desire to live a life and find happiness, is enough to make me not want that person to be harmed. So how is it possible for people today to still bomb others, to stone young girls to death, to torture people, to decapitate innocent humanitarians, to end lives without so much as a flinch?

I think about that a lot because I find it to be one of the most difficult things to understand. Sure many of those involved might have fallen under some sort of mob mentality. But what about the principle evil-doers (so to speak)? I thought about this once in the context of bugs. Imagine the gnarliest bug you could think of. I'm not very bug-savvy, so I'll just propose the infamous example of grossness- the cockroach. Perhaps people capable of doing harm to others view those others as I view cockroaches. I know that cockroaches have some place in the world (as most creatures either do something or serve as a food supply to other creatures), but I'd rather not see them. I cringe when I see them anywhere, but if they're on my territory - I want them to be removed. Maybe that's how some people feel about others, they feel that they are like cockroaches that are to be exterminated. And, since they remove the idea of possessing a shared humanity by choosing to think of others as bugs, it makes it easier to inflict pain or eliminate those people. Some have the power to squash the cockroaches themselves. Others, however, (like me) cannot stand the experience of crushing a bug firsthand and, thus, appoint others to dispose of the intruding party for them.

My example surely does not adequately explain the mind of a mass-murderer - but it helps me to begin to fathom the possibility of having that mentality. It truly is distressing to think about, so for now I will leave it at that and maybe write about this more when I have other ideas that can be better articulated.