Trains

Four times a week I ride a train to and from my school. I greatly prefer this to driving.  I usually zone out and day dream or read. Very rarely, I observe. A lot can be told for the thousands that ride in a dirty tin can back and forth. Most are as just as zoned out as I am, others are busy talking loudly on a cell phone of some very private business that I prefer not to hear about.

I am not impressed with the fact that you just got out of jail.

I have seen people with faux tails attached to their pants. Animal spots meticulously drawn on their face, sometimes they do this on the tin can, while it's moving. I will never understand that. I can barely hold on to my phone on a regular basis.

By far, my favorites have to be the ones looking for love. Well, attempting to find it.

One of my other favorites are the ones that you can clearly see him watch the bouncing of your boobs with the movement of the jostling train. It makes it so much better when he tries to hide it with his sunglasses. I was once told that this is in-fact one of the main purposes of sunglasses. Along with style and blocking out the sun. Nice try guys. :)

I'm a lightweight.

I communicate through song. No I cannot sing, or play any instruments (very well, I played violin and cello in middle school, I'm not sure if that actually counts now that I think about it.) I can usually find a song that can explain what is exactly going on in my soul at any particular time. I feel like many of my posts will be lyrics to songs.

Recently, I've been in a Demi Lovato mood. To be more exact, I've probably listened to her newest album, Unbroken, a million times. It was released in September of 2011 after she was released from treatment.


Here are the lyrics to the song that is speaking to my soul right now:

           Lightweight


The slightest words you said
Have all gone to my head
I hear angels sing in your voice
When you pull me close
Feelings I’ve never known
They mean everything
And leave me no choice

Light on my heart, light on my feet
Light in your eyes I can’t even speak
Do you even know how you make me weak

I’m a lightweight
Better be careful what you say
With every word I’m blown away
You’re in control of my heart
I’m a lightweight
Easy to fall, easy to break
With every move my whole world shakes
Keep me from falling apart

Make a promise, please
You’ll always be in reach
Just in case I need
You're there when I call
This is all so new
Seems too good to be true
Could this really be
A safe place to fall

Light on my heart, light on my feet
Light in your eyes I can’t even speak
Do you even know how you make me weak, oh whoa

I’m a lightweight
Better be careful what you say
With every word I’m blown away
You’re in control of my heart
I’m a lightweight
Easy to fall, easy to break
With every move my whole world shakes
Keep me from falling apart
Keep me from falling down

Drowned in your love
It’s almost all too much
Handle with care
Say you’ll be there

Oh, I’m a lightweight
Better be careful what you say
With every word I’m blown away
You’re in control of my heart
I’m a lightweight
Easy to fall, easy to break
With every move my whole world shakes
Keep me from falling apart
Keep me from falling apart
Keep me from falling apart, oh
Falling apart

Letters.

I am non-confrontational. I hide my feelings and emotions from others to keep from embarrassing myself. One way I found early on to help me cope with my feelings and emotions towards others is to write letters to them. Letters that have never been sent, and they never will be. They allow me to be completely honest without limitations.

Some of the letters I first started writing were to a friend at my work. We'll call her "The Pool Girl" for a lack of a better name.

I met The Pool Girl during the summer of 2009, when she started. We almost instantly became friends. Best friends. When my dad became sick, she was one of the few people I told for awhile. I didn't want it to be true so I tried to tell as few people as possible.

It was towards the end of December, beginning of January and I had been depressed for a long time by that point. I kept everything inside until one day I couldn't hold it in any longer. She asked, I talked, and she listened. I spilled the entire contents of my brain and heart. I told her things that I wouldn't even admit to myself today. I knew that it was a lot for someone to handle and take in, but I couldn't stop myself.

Maybe 2 weeks after I told her everything, she fell in love and moved 3 or 4 hours away. Taking the deepest depths of my soul with her. I didn't hear from her until months after my dad's surgery. She was the only person who knew almost everything.

I felt betrayed. Not only did she leave, she had shafted me and a mutual friend for someone who abused her. She never had a good taste in men and she dated a lot of old men. They were weird too, but we continued to support her every time she met another wakadoo.

Later she had asked me why we didn't talk and why we weren't friends anymore, I didn't know how to truly tell her in person, 
so I wrote.

                                                                                                                                            June 25, 2010
Dear [ "The Pool Girl"],
   I know that I left you hanging but I couldn't quite control or put into words, my feelings. But, I'm ready now.
   I'm truly mad at you because you mad me pour my soul out to you and tell you my deepest secrets one night. You promised me that you would be there for me through everything that was happening in my life then. But you left, when I need you the most. 
   My life was in a fragile state and you chose [your boyfriend] over me completely. I understand that you love him but, if he truly loved you too, he wouldn't have taken you from me.
 You were one of the only people I could truly talk to about my life. Especially about the state my life was in. You've ruined my trust in people. You contributed to why I am so guarded with other people. I hate you for that.
 And now, I don't express my true feelings to anyone because I expect them to leave, like you did.
There are so many more things I wish I could say to you but, those things cannot be put into words yet.

                                                                           - Danielle

  The Pool Girl came back one time after that, while she was still with her boyfriend. We went to lunch with another one of our friends. We wanted to talk to her how brainwashed and abused we felt she was.

  When she was with this guy, he wouldn't allow her to leave the house without his permission, and sometimes, without him. Her phone calls to us were limited and she always was forced to put us on speakerphone. Eventually, the phone calls stopped coming.

   When we were at lunch, she just kept repeating to us about how in love she was. She was really in-depth with her faith, so when she says to me that her boyfriend came before God, I knew we had lost her.

[Just a side note: I am a baptized Episcopalian, but I am not a religious person. I have never read the Bible and I don't go to church. But I do know enough about Christianity to know how putting her boyfriend (not her relationship, just him) before her relationship with her higher power, was not right.]

Last spring, I met The Pool Girl for lunch because, frankly, she begged me to. She had broken up with her boyfriend after he had lied to her and got her really sick. I asked her about how she felt after our lunch the year before, especially about her putting her boyfriend before her relationship with God. She didn't remember ever saying it. She never asked about my dad or me, for that matter. Then we parted ways and we haven't spoken since.

And when the rain came, I danced while I cried with the sky.

“A Little Rain Must Fall”

This is my poem in celebration of learning the true definition of love.
And that a little rain must fall.
And all the pain it took to finally understand.

This poem is for my mother,
Who works during the summer to be able to give us the extras.
Whose passion is to educate those who have needs that most of us cannot understand.
And when the rain came, she put up her umbrella and cried.

This poem is for my brothers,
Who are also learning the definition of love the hard way,
being soaked by every rain storm that passes through,
And when the rain came, they looked up to the sky and tried to understand.

This poem is for my father,
Who was hit by a distracted driver on his way to work,
to make money for his three children.
Whose life was turned upside down in that single moment.
Who has been viewed as expendable.
Who survived a risky brain surgery.
Who still struggles with pain, and guilt every day.
And when the rain came, he put up his umbrella and stomped through it.

This is for Jeri Anderson,
Who played with her grandchildren as if she was still a child herself.
Who was diagnosed with brain and lung cancer.
Who died before she could see her five grandchildren grow up.
Whose passion for life courses through my veins.
And when the rain came, she put up her umbrella and laughed at it.

This poem is against working too hard, brain tumors and missing grandmothers.

This is a poem to say that “life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain”.

I lived with pain,
but I always had the necessities
and maybe some luxuries,
but most importantly, I had love.
And when the rain came, I danced while I cried with the sky.



Understand, I know exactly what I got
a family, love
and a knowledge of true pain.
And a chance to learn the definition of love through all of the rain storms.

I will not let my pain drown me,
I will not take love for granted.
And I intend to dance in the rain, every chance I get.

Hell

During my senior year of high school, my father was diagnosed with acromegaly, a form of brain tumor effecting the human growth hormone levels in the blood. Untreated, a person could keep growing at rate you would expect from young children, not adults. And eventually, a person could die. After all that we went through, I'm seriously surprised I finished and got my diploma. I don't know how I did it and I don't think I could do it again. His brain surgery was a success and I went on to college. The first semester of my Freshman year, I wrote this for an English course. It was the first time I dealt with all of the emotions I had stored inside.

    The siren of an alarm goes off at 9:00 a.m. I can see the passing beauty of a snowflake outside of my window on this cold January morning. Another day of sluggishly dragging out of my bed. For the last three months, the night just never seems long enough; I feel like I haven’t slept since he was diagnosed. But unlike the past 90 days, today just seems harder. The steaming shower stings my skin, but the pain seems irrelevant. I spend ten minutes starring into the closet, when finally my favorite sweatshirt calls my name. Pulling it on I notice the few small holes of wear starting to show the strong fabric. I am at my breaking point, I haven’t worn anything but sweats since the doctor said that surgery was the only other option. I flop on my bed exhausted. I decide that I look good enough for what I’m about to deal with.
    I arrive at the hospital and the big blue Franklin Medical Center sign sends a wave of nausea through me. I check in at the security kiosk. When the squeaky “Neurosurgery floor, please,” escapes my lips, I shudder.
    “What?” the security guard asks in a voice that seems too loud in my empty head. I feel it cut through my throat as I say it a second time.
    The elevator ride seems unreasonably short, I haven’t had enough time to prepare myself. The waiting room is cold and smells like disinfectant, with generic paintings that are meant to calm, but they seem to have the reverse effect on my little family sitting at the table. The surgery started two hours ago and my mother, grandmother, and uncle start to get antsy, shifting in their seats and constantly getting up to scan the patient monitor
    “Why is it taking so long? It should be over by now. Is there something wrong?” My once constantly self-assuring, mother says, now she is just a shadow of what she used to be. Questioning, quiet, hollow.
    “It will all be ok. He’ll walk out of here and get to feeling better soon.” Grandma Phyllis says, playing with the hoop earrings my father bought for her birthday, seven months, and a lifetime ago.
    In October, my father was diagnosed with acromegaly, a form of brain tumor effecting the human growth hormone levels in the blood. Untreated, a person could keep growing at rate you would expect from young children, not adults. And eventually, a person could die.
    My uncle and I stay silent, both scared out of our minds. My mother is right, it is taking too long. We frantically check the out-of-surgery screen waiting for the magic number 25982 to show up along those who had made it through the risky art of surgery. Finally, three and a half hours after he first went in, his number appears on the screen, my hands stop shaking and the knot in my stomach loosens up. The tall, thin, transparently tired Dr. Colapinto walks to our table, it seems like hours until he finally reaches my tense family. He then explains that the reason for our long bated-breath wait was all because my father’s thick skull broke the machine they used to drill into his brain cavity.
    “Well, we always knew that he was thick-headed.” My uncle states followed by a strained laugh from all of us.
    Dr. Colapinto tells us that the hard part is over, and we should relax and go get some lunch because it be at least another treacherous half hour before we can get a glimpse as to what is left of my father.
    The time has finally come for us to see him; the knot in the pit of my stomach clenches up with more force than before. I’m scared to see the tall six foot two inch, strong father laying in a bed, torn down by a tumor the size of a pencil eraser. On the elevator ride up to the ICU floor, my hands start to shake with a force that can only can be compared to an earthquake. Walking into the round quiet bay of the ICU, I pass by a room and see a man so sick that the bed shakes to keep him from getting pneumonia. “There is no way my father can look as bad as this poor man.” I think as I try not to stare into his room. Three doors down on the large white board I see the name I’ve been searching desperately for: STICKA, R. I sigh and my knot loosens again. The only thing I can hear is the slow wheezing of the respirator and the beeping heart monitor with a rhythm that calms me more. I follow my mother into the room, afraid to be first to see my broken father. 
    I peek around the edge of the door and the sight is like a kick in the stomach. There was my father, broken and vacant with a tube coming out of with his mouth. Tubes are snaking their way out in all different directions from under the blanket.  My mother and I walk up and hold his hands, a tear streams down her cheek, followed by three more. Just then the nurse walks in and my mother hurriedly wipes away the tears. She checks his vitals and removes the tube from his throat. I try to choke back the tears. My mother asks if he is in pain, he can only respond in two slow moans. After an hour, I don’t think I can sit here and look at him anymore. I get to the car and the tears come, unrelenting and painful but I can feel the boulder tumble off my back and the knot in my stomach gives up and my hands stop shaking. Our battle is over.

Welcome to my Blog!

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass... it's about learning to dance in the rain." - Unknown

Through this quote I have learned how to live my life with the ups and downs that come natural in a lifetime. This also has helped me with the bumps in the road that, at many times, seem more like mountains than bumps.

About me.....
My name is Danielle and I am currently 19 years old and living in Colorado. My life is pretty laid back currently, until I go back to school in a week. I like most genres of music but I don't usually like stuff like heavy metal and rap and, unlike most, I do like country music. I am a shy and private person, and I have trouble sharing too many raw emotions with others so bear with me! My openness will hopefully get better through time on this blog! Enjoy!