so when you run, make sure you run to something and not away from

The Resolution

Halfway through 2009, I realized that I was unsure of the point I had reached in my life. So I stopped holding expectations for what I thought the future should (or would) be. I didn't want hopes because I didn't want disappointments. I just wanted to see what exactly was going to happen and how it was going to do so. And so I did.

2009 ended with a lot of things brand new.

I graduated from college. I saw something through from start to finish, and I had the support, the companionship, and the respect of those around me who played such an enormously key part in my journey. I could not have done it without those people. I could not have done it alone. Admitting that was one of the hardest things in the world to do, but also one of the most important. Every man is not an island. I am not an island. And I am so, so grateful for that.

I moved from Los Angeles and lost a part of myself and gained a part of myself, too. It's so easy to want what you don't have, because in general, what is truly difficult, is to enjoy what you do have already. I am guilty of both of those things. In LA, I could complain that people were shallow and self centered and self righteous. But I moved, and I don't really believe that I got away from any of that. People everywhere are going to be shallow and self centered and self righteous. So the real challenge is letting it go. Being okay with the fact that it's hard to find people to trust and to love and to surround yourself with. Being okay with the fact that sometimes, you are going to be alone, because being alone is better than the alternative.

I got a job that I have loved and everyday it progresses into something new. I like packing lunches and going to work. I like having new friends and people to laugh with and talk to who understand me and where I am in my life. I like being the at the head of a team of people who are (for the most part) genuinely good. I like clothes (duh), and styling, and paperwork, and advertising, and buying and merchandising independently. I like having a purpose and knowing that things would be altered if I wasn't around.

I built a support system for myself consisting of my faith in the Lord and my faith in general goodness, my mother and father, my incredible new roommate, people I've let into my life, Taylor William Spongberg, my family. The books I've read, the novel I'm writing, the music I listen to, and the photos I take. And a lot of those things are the things that are going to be around regardless of where I go or who I meet. That's comforting. That's how a life should be, I think.

For the first time in my life, I am in a relationship that I can envision lasting. I love him and he adores me and I am lucky for that. I have reached a point where I am confident enough with myself to be confident with somebody else, too. I know now that I can be strong and capable even if I am alone, and so I can be strong and capable with somebody else. I owe him so much for allowing me to grow into who I am, because it wasn't an overnight process. I know that I can be weird, and insecure sometimes. But not so much, anymore. Little by little, I am less, and because of that, ultimately, I am more.

I've learned a lot of things about a lot of people I know and people I thought I knew. Good things, bad things, things that have been overlooked for years. I have experienced frustration. I have experienced let down. And I have been sad. What this all comes down to is the fact that people change, grow, and move on sometimes. Sometimes you outgrow one another, sometimes they leave you behind, and sometimes you move forward with them. Throughout the course of the year, I've learned to accept that, rather than attempting to keep things as they were as I'd done for so long before. Because that is just exhausting, and in the end, the only life that you hold semi-control over is your own. Change can be sad and scary, but it can be necessary, and it can be exhilarating.

In 2009, I know that I let people down. People let me down. Hearts were broken and new lives were started. Friendships were challenged. Motives were questioned. Lines were crossed. Yet still, lives continued in other states and mine, here in California.

All the while, all of these totally great things were happening all around me. Happening to me. My parents were exploring new facets of hope and love that I'd not seen before. Moving forward, together. Opening their hearts. Finding their creative sides. Becoming my friends while still being my teachers... The concept of true, politically incorrect, unabridged family reentered my life for the first time since I was young, and I was reintroduced to a group of crazy people who have helped to turn me into who I am, though I might not have always known it... Distance between my sister and I continues to bring us even closer together, and we are and always will be a unit together... New friends have taught me that things don't always have to be a certain way to qualify a friendship. Nobody has the upper hand. No judgement, no questioning, no manipulation. Just people being together because they like each other and because they want to be. It should be so simple. Friendship should never, ever cause you to feel bad about yourself for no apparent reason.

Through all of those things, as I was changing, I realized, so was everybody else. What an incredible thing to see.

I have heard time after time recently how grateful everyone is to see the end of 2009. And for the most part, I agree. But not because it was a terrible year, because I don't really think that it was. It was a year for learning, a year for feeling, a year for reconstructing, and overall, it was a year for growing up. So I look to 2010 with hope before fear, excitement before negativity, love before letdown, and strength before a white flag.

Maybe some of those things that were left unresolved in '09 will gain closure or seek continuation during the new year. Maybe they will fade away and disappear completely. Maybe monumental things will happen, and maybe the only thing monumental about it will be the ultimate stability that I've found. I have my heart and all of the people I hold inside of it, I have my health, and I have faith.

Whatever happens, the only resolution I choose to uphold throughout this new year is to keep my heart open.

I resolve to allow myself to experience both the good and the bad both, no longer shutting either out in hopes to keep my life stable. To accept both elements because I think I know now that this is the only way I can truly move forward. Everybody deserves both the good and the bad, and if I can remember that, I know that I will be okay.

Happy new year, everyone. Keep your heads high and your fingers crossed, always.

you can read me anything.

as far as i'm concerned, there's only one way up

insomnia. the good kind, when you know you don't have to wake up early.

Something has been happening lately. Over the past few months I have been on this roller-coaster of ups and downs that's just been taking me in steady circles. According to hundreds of novels, movies, parents, and psychology professors, I'm just a student who is about to graduate from college. Right?

But honestly, I think the problem really roots itself in the fact that I have a hard time believing people when they tell me that I can do whatever I want. It society today, that seems so untrue. Everyone around me is constantly being limited and restricted, and whatever it is that we want to do sort of gets lost in the translation of just trying to make it work. Trying to get to wherever we want to go. Trying to be whatever we need to be in order to go further. Until we all end up confused as hell as to how the fuck we got to wherever we are standing. 

I guess sometimes you've just got to take a step backward and ask yourself what you've really got control over. Honest control, where you determine the exact outcome, which truly turns out to be whatever you saw it becoming. And it's almost nothing, isn't it? The choices we make can only take us so far, because whether or not we like it, we were created to coexist and so much of the shit that's going to happen to me is really going to depend on you guys and the people I surround myself with and billions of people I'll never even pass on the street.

So can I do whatever I want? I'm not really sure yet. I'm still trying to figure that out. I want to do what I want to do, and I want to do it in a way that pushes my limits without forfeiting my goals. Somedays I get the feeling that the reality of the situation is pretty damn grim, and then somedays, like today, I get this overwhelming sense that I'm going to find a way to make it work. There are so many ways to be happy and so many places you can find comfort or strength or humor or awe, and as long as I don't lose that, then I think a change is going to be okay. Something's terrible, but there will be something else around to cancel it out.

As for the rest of it, it's got to come in stride because whether I appreciate it or not, things are going to play themselves out. I had a really fucking shitty day a few days back, but because that day was shitty, today was better. And I think I'm starting to understand that everything is relative and the only way we can feel anything at all is through comparison and experience. I like that, because it gives me this feeling that whatever is happening to me at this point in my life is going to be important someday. 

I spoke with my mom a fews days back about wanting to break down and cry one minute and feeling overwhelming excitement the next, and she told me that things were happening. That I needed to pay attention. And then it hit me - I think I'm growing up. I haven't felt like this, probably ever, and it's pretty damn strange. And when I told her this she thought for a minute and told me that I didn't have to be ready, and I didn't have to be prepared, but I had to be open to whatever was coming. And so that's what I'm going to try to do. To let things inside, to let them affect me, and to submerse myself into this supposed transition. 

In this life there are no rules, and there are no honest definitions. This is why we’ve got to learn to create our own. 

You can’t let yourself feel terrible forever because of something that happened in October. You can't live in a rut and call that a life. You can't put others around you before yourself all the time and think that counts as love. You can't let yourself be terrified that you're going to amount to nothing at all, or hide from the good things because it hurts so much when they go away. Because in the end, everything that happens happened, and that is enough. You can face it a false smile, or a breath of youthful excitement. You can allow yourself to cry, smoke too much pot, shut everything out. Or you can accept the fact that whatever happened came and went in this life where nothing, good nor evil, lasts forever. And you can take it with you, knowing that no matter what, this is life, and it doesn’t stand still for anybody. The world may slow down, but it won't stop. Cruelly yet fairly, ever so beautifully, the sun will rise in the morning and it will set that night. 

Tomorrow I might wake up terrified again. But for now, at least, all I can see is the good. Maybe the world is fucked, but we’re all still here. We are all still living life, alive and breathing, and in the end it’s those inhales and exhales that keep us ahead, keep us waking up in the morning; kissing, fighting, dreaming, sighing, laughing, playing, drinking, crying. If we can keep track of the in and out of the most important resource on earth, I think we might actually end up okay.

So for now, that is what I know, and for now, it may just be enough.

the wrestler

go rent it.

You know those songs that you wish were written for you?

They don't have to be completely happy and they don't have to be intensely charming. They just have to be real. To remind you that people still feel things, sometimes.

20. French Kiss - The Teenagers
I can't help it. Really. I tried to get it off the list.

19. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart - Wilco
Beauty full.

18. I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) - The Proclaimers
Dedication.

17. In A Little While - U2
Bono.

16. Someday - The Strokes
Sexy.

15. Barricade - Stars
Tragic.

14. What Else Would You Have Me Be? - Lucero
Be.

13. True Love Way - Kings of Leon
Want.

12. La Cienega Just Smiled - Ryan Adams
Sigh.

11. Ocean of Noise - Arcade Fire
Forgive.

10. Love Me Tenderly - The Felice Brothers
Love.

9. A.M. 180 - Granddaddy
Cute.

8. The Temptation of Adam - Josh Ritter
Perfect.

7. All of My Days - Alexi Murdoch
Sweet.

6. My Favourite Chords - The Weakerthans
Innocent.

5. First Day of My Life - Bright Eyes
Conor.

4. Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen
Freedom.

3. Consequence - The Notwist
Empathy.

2. I'll Be Your Lover, Too - Van Morrison
(You could switch this out for Brown Eyed Girl, I'd bat for both teams on this one).

1. Romeo and Juliet - Dire Straits
Obviously there is no greater love song ever written on the face of the planet.



Stay tuned for the next 12:30 A.M. snack - songs I wish I'd written...

You learn something new every day.

Yes, you certainly do. 

re-write

I take back what I said yesterday... I really think have found my true life calling:

NOW CASTING "GHOST HUNTERS: NEW GENERATION"

Grant Wilson, future father of my unborn children, pick me.

And when you are left in doubt, inhale.

Hi.

Three months into 2009 and I am back. And for whatever it is worth, I think I am standing in a really good place, for now.

I am about to graduate into an economy that has very little to offer me, and for the past couple of months, that really been fucking me up. But now, as of late, I am choosing to embrace it. Keep your enemies closer, right? Whatever will be will be, and everything within my control will determine my next steps. It's really a powerful thing when you realize that nobody can sway your direction unless you choose to let them.

90 days went by and I went home for Christmas and realized I missed my friends but never wanted to live in Wyoming again. I turned 22 and I grew up a little. I realized that I want to go back to school and get a four year degree to teach elementary school. My dad had a heart attack and I started to pray again, a little, but on my own terms. I grew apart from things I held onto for so long in my past, and from that growth I let new people into my life, and have loved every second of it. I learned to look at my goddamn alcohol class as an opportunity rather than a punishment. I stopped smoking. I taught my first art class by myself. I got straight A's. I went to Disneyland and remembered what it feels like to be little and happy and free. 

About a week ago, a very brave woman told me that nobody can ever really know the profound effect they may have on somebody else. And it made me start to think about things a little bit differently. You are not only living for you. You are living for others. And good or bad, you can change people. And you can allow them to change you. That's how the world works and that's how we grow up and wake up and continue to function through the 8 foot deep shitpool we sometimes find ourselves drowning in. I like that. I really do.

So now, I think my goal is to keep my eyes open for all of this change, and to let it empower me. To realize that no matter how terrible things like these 52 court ordered AA meetings may seem, they are around for a reason. This same woman I mentioned before also told me that night that my presence at these meetings might not be solely intended to educate me - that me being there might actually help somebody else, if only to feel a little bit more comfortable. And that is a risk I am willing to look at as a positive rather than a punishment.

In the end, this is what I know: There is sunshine, and I have strength and long hair and clothing and a roof and talent and a library card. I may have no real concrete plans, but I have people who care about me, and I know what I want. I figure that is as good a start as any.

Here's some pictures from the past 3 months of my life, FYEO.

Natalie came home :)

M. Ward came to the Fonda

Delta Spirit came to the El Rey

The sun came out.

I found God at the mission in San Juan.

We went to Laguna a few times.

Delta Spirit changed my life.

San Clemente was fun.

Flowers came out to play in LA.

A new coffee place opened by our apartment and we went there practically everyday. 

I turned 22.

Joshua James played at Hotel Cafe.

the resolution(s)

OK. Here's the plan. For me and no one else:

Eat more. Drink more. Write more. Love more. Cook more. Do more things. Meet more people. Get a job that pays. Stay in California. Find new places. 

Remember the interesting-ness in life. 

Accept more. 

Sleep less. Whine less. Feel less sorry when insignificant shitty stuff happens to me and not somebody else. 

Take care of myself and take care of other people in the ways that I know how.

Happy 2009, ya  big jerks!

top 11 things i have been doing lately

1. Reading newlywed couples' blogs. It's cute and annoying at the same time.

2. Shopping at Michael's.

3. Watching loads of made-for-TV Christmas movies on Fox Family.

4. Listening to the new Killers album.

5. Reading my Chinese horoscope, (thanks, You). 

I am a Fire-Rabbit. 

I am Keen, Wise, Fragile, Tranquil, Serene, Considerate, Fashionable, Sneaky, & Obsessive. 

Some of my Hobbies and Pastimes include: Writing poetry, hiking, planting gardens and trees, chatting with friends.

My Rabbit Dislikes are: **Touchy-feely people, abrupt curves in their routines, disorganization.

**I love touchy feely people, but everything else seems pretty accurate.

Also, in case you guys wanted to know what to get me for Christmas, here are a few ideas: 

Suitable Gifts: Tapestry kit, CD, fine wine, easel, lyrics book

6. Deciding upon the worst song of all time, which happens to be Rock Me Amadeus by Falco. If you really want to watch the music video, I won't stop you.




7. Starting my own Etsy site, which you will be able to view at some point in the foreseeable future, I think.

8. Eating hummus.

9. Making Christmas presents for the handful of people I still like.

10. Homework.

11. Listening to Rob Pattinson cover Van Morrison.

sometimes i feel just like this.

rocktober: a month in review

october has been over for 12 days, and santa is now painting the pharmacies red & green, which i guess signifies the eminent force that is christmas nearing. and that's okay. i'm glad the month over and i'm glad that everything is moving forward, because there were times when i would've been okay with the world completely stopping. through the good moments that i wanted to last forever, to the moments that made me feel like my life was literally going to end, october passed and eased its way into a glowing november. an awful and costly mistake that was made countered some of the best live shows i have ever seen, an economic crash lead us to a new president and a new sense of hope, an election that brought a country to life. through everything, i moved forward and now, 12 days later, i am still here and i'm genuinely okay.

i want to thank everybody who helped me move forward. for their kind words and understanding and the undaunted courage to make me laugh when i could hardly breathe. there is no way for me to express how much it means to know that there are others in the world who refuse to judge in hope for truth, and i love you all.

anyway, here are a couple of worthwhile ways to spend a few of hours. see you there, come and say hi! bring your friends. eat, drink, enjoy great live music. remember how damned important it is to let yourself have some fun.

october 2008 as seen and documented by hannah stayner:

a photographic log of a month in review.

Halloween Satan Stomp in Laguna Beach

w/ My Pet Saddle & The Growlerrrrs

Felice Brothers @ The Troubadour

our pumpkins!

Halloween in OC

House of Blues

Happy November to you all, lovelies.

Give thanks, give love, have fun, and be happy.