Aly Knows Best

Loneliness isn’t something you should be ashamed of, it should be something that you grow and learn from. It’s okay to spend time with yourself and know yourself and truly feel emotion- this is something that took me a long time to understand. Because, in being lonely you can learn to love yourself and find your best qualities as well as your ultimate downfalls. I will update you, my readers on the narrative of my story in the past months since I have neglected to share it before…

In December, I finally finished my nearly 6 year long and extremely difficult journey of obtaining my Bachelor’s Degree. Several weeks later I packed up my room in my small apartment in LA, and said goodbye to my roommates and the life I had there which was extremely difficult. In the past year I had experienced several different jobs, the hardships of finishing college and my first real breakup. I had friends there, it was a big city, the transition back to my small hometown of Ventura, CA was going to be difficult. I lust after the feeling of newness and the sheen of discovering new things and people, how was I going to discover that in a place I already spent 18 years of my life in? I was so naive only 2 months ago to think I was coming back to nothing. When really I was coming back to a family who loved me unconditionally and was waiting with open arms to receive me and congratulate me on my recent as Facebook would call it “Life Event” of finishing school and “starting the rest of my life.”

However, in that moment I was still hung up on the all-consuming feelings of a broken heart, close friends moving away and my life I had come to know and love in LA seemed like such a distant memory already. I was having a lot of trouble accepting this feeling of uneasiness and uncertainty- I suppose it’s what most people must feel like when they’re naked.

After days of frustration and the omnipotent theme looming over my head of “what the f*** am I going to do?!” I found solace in a close friend who had been staying on and off with my family in Ventura who suggested I drive back with her to San Antonio, Texas and we would make a road trip out of it. So, as an optimist always keen on finding ways to escape reality, I packed a suitcase, and booked a return flight from San Antonio to LA for the following Sunday. We spent about 24 hours total in the car and stopped to hike Joshua Tree’s incredible desert peaks as well as explore the much talked about eclectic contemporary art scene in Marfa, Texas. It was awesome- we were Thelma & Louise and the world was our goddam oyster. In the minuscule town of Marfa (really we walked the entire circumference several times), which has inspired the greatness of so many writers, artists and musicians, I myself found a transformative experience. Not that I am in any way great (at least my mom might think so). I found myself standing in a field of coarse tall grass looking at sculptures by a well known contemporary artist that were framed by beautiful never-ending blue skies, and I felt so small and so alive at the same time. The cold dry desert wind whipping my face, my nose running, laughing with my friend, feeling like there wasn’t a care in the world until I came back home and dealt with reality. The fact that I was a college grad, without a job, without a clear direction, with a nearly empty bank account and without a sense of independence that my Libra soul craves. I had to make the decision to be happy.

On that same trip I became extremely inspired by feminist narrative story tellers and poets like Eileen Myles (who we actually ran into in Marfa), Eve Babitz (an incredible muse to many and a self-proclaimed adventurous) and Janice Joplin who preached the longing of my melancholy heart in her signature raspy drawl blaring thru my headphones as I sat alone in the airplane terminal at 6:30am.

I returned home already missing the trip, waking up the days following wondering what my next move was. All the while taking for granted that although so much had changed, I was in a place where I was loved and cared for. Something that I’ve failed to mention in this blog for so long that effects mine and my families life everyday is the state of my mom’s health. It’s not often that I share something so personal with the entire world wide web, but hey I need an outlet.

The word reality for me (and probably many of you) has for my adult life thus far had a negative connotation. I remember one summer taking a class where we annotated “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and I told my professor I did’t like the book because it didn’t allow for fantasies or escapism (my feelings have since changed). For me, a long time reality has been my mom being very seriously ill since my last year of high school (nearly 6 years ago she was diagnosed with a rare and extremely debilitating and incurable lung disease). It has been something that has reshaped the way I view life and value relationships because there’s always the feeling that what you love can be taken away from you. Watching the person who brought you into this world struggle and have to fight for so long is the hardest thing I have had to experience in my short 23 years on this planet, and honestly I would not wish it upon anyone.

In the last month and a half that I have been home I have been trying to make peace with the reasons for me being here and having faith that there is still a journey in which I will take and be happy. And after getting to spend some time with my mom going to various doctors appointments and negotiating with doctors about what we think the countless meds are doing to her now weak body, I look at her and this experience and I struggle to find justification as to why this might be happening. A friend recently told me there is a reason clichés exist- it’s because they hold assemblages of truths that we secretly know to be true. I could get into “life is so precious” and blah blah blah but instead I am trying to do something else, which is allowing myself to feel a certain way and come to terms with where life is leading me at the moment. Sometimes, selfish acts and ways of thinking reflect your selflessness towards the people around you who you care about. And I want you to know, that the positives are quite exciting right now and may even overshadow the feelings of remorse for not spending more time with my mother. I’m sure when she reads this she’ll say “Aly, spare the dramatics” because I have a tendency to embellish detail (possibly from watching so many telenovelas as of late)- which says something about her character.

So yes I cry, but what’s wrong with that? Is it because reality is not the reality I’ve hoped for? I recently spent a lot of time and energy deeply caring for someone who was too blind to appreciate their current reality, and instead spent most of their time pining over other things and eventually completely lost site of what was eminently important. And yes, as the queen of clichés I can preach to you, my readers who may be feeling some of the grief or uncertainty that I’m going through, I leave you with this line from a Fleetwood Mac song I recently got tattooed on my body forever (lol):

It’ll soon be here. 

1.14.16 in Marfa, TX.

I have been neglecting this blog for the past several months and I just sat down to write and really couldn’t pin-point the main reason. I guess numerous things have been happening that have been not only obstacles, but life-changing events (positive and negative).  I suppose the main reason I’ve put writing on the back burner is probably because for a while, I took off more than I could chew with school, work, relationships, etcetera. Sometimes we let unimportant or petty things get in the way of things we are most passionate about- and I am passionate about writing. As cliche as it sounds, I feel like I’ve been given a voice and story that if I share, people will listen (and I so appreciate that).

To bring you all a little up-to-date, for the last four months I have been enduring the last (full) semester of my career as an undergraduate college student. For those of you who don’t know, this journey for me has spanned over the past five years, multiple schools and continents. I left my parents house when I was 17 to attend a school far from home (500 miles) where I thought I’d be far enough for my problems to melt away- they didn’t. I hit a lot of big bumps during those first two years that I thought might dull my ever ambitious shine and stop me from doing what I wanted to do- but they didn’t. I found solace in an incredible internship where I felt constantly inspired and hungry to make something of myself and more importantly, to write. This inspiration was further fed by an unforgettable summer spent in Europe where my eyes were opened wider than they ever had been before. I discovered a love for art history, taking photos of people and learning about cultures much different from my own.

Yes the learning or traditional education I gained from a university experience has been important, but the things I learned about myself along the way have proven to be invaluable. Because, even though I am only 22 years old, I have lived in a city in a foreign country, been able to prove myself valuable in many different types of job settings, know how to communicate and numerous other lessons you cannot learn in a classroom. I’ve learned some things the incredibly hard way, and I’ve also learned things by observing others mistakes. My belief is, that every bit of information and wisdom you learn yourself or gain from someone else can prove to be extremely valuable. People who don’t have this type of mentality will not go far- trust me.

After this entire journey, I discovered last week that I will not be able to walk in my college graduation. I have to admit, when I received this news, I was pretty crushed. I needed something, anything remotely positive to hold on to and graduation was going to be it. However, since a few days have passed, I’ve realized that a traditional right of passage is not something I need because I haven’t had a traditional college experience whatsoever- and that’s okay. In places where I feel like I have come up short, I’ve been able to fill those voids with incredible and serendipitous relationships I have gained over the years. I don’t care how cheesy or cliche I’m sounding at this point, but I really do believe that things happen for a reason, and maybe the reason doesn’t always reveal itself to you immediately, but it will in due time.

Other than graduation, I have began to think about how I really want to achieve my lofty goals and pursue my career. I’ve been having trouble lately deciding exactly what it is I want to do, because I have changed my mind so many times. I recently had a friend ask me “what do you like to do?” and that question has been in the back of my mind since then. What a concept? Doing something you love for the rest of your life. When I was originally asked this, I thought of the Frank Ocean song “Thinkin Bout You” because there’s a lyric that says, “Or do you not think so far ahead? ‘Cause I been thinkin’ ’bout forever.” It speaks to me because anyone who knows me knows I am always anxious about the next thing that’s going to happen. For now I want to take this time and live in the moment.

Thank you for all your love and support and thank you for reading always.

xx Aly