This is what happens when I sleep in too late...

Blah. Restless. I slept in too long this morning. Now I'm all thrown off again. Class in 6 hours. Ugh.

Back from New York. I brought back homemade tomato sauce, (my grandmother's recipe), the best cheesecake on Long Island (and coffee cake and apple walnut cake), a bunch of recipes, some new memories, and dusted off a few older ones.
*warning: from this point on this blog gets a little heavier than I usually keep it*

We watched some home movies from various trips to New York and visits to NC. We were digging for the ones with my dad. We found about 3. I remember a lot, considering how young I was. But as my god mother kept telling stories, and the funny things he would say I realized I couldn't remember his voice. So as we fast forwarded through my cousins' basketball games and proms (oh the mullets were FANTASTIC) I sort of struggled to recall my dad's voice and there was just this obnoxious silence.

Then, there it was. It was a rather embarrassing video of myself in a kiddie pool in the back yard. But I heard him say, "Amy, can tell aunt Marion hi?"I teared up. It made him so real again, unlocked so much more. Luckily, being the comic relief I tend to be, I laughed when I heard myself say "..no." I can still hear it. I think that's the best thing I brought home.

Being there just sort of renewed my spirit, and who I am. I'm an Italian, who is passionate, loud, and outspoken. I love Meredith, but some times I think it tamed a little bit of that, which in the real world is probably a good thing, but it was nice to be able to let it go for a while.

Needless to say I needed that, because as soon as I was back at MC it was all systems go. Back to everything there was before, and what seemed like more. I didn't unpack until today. I forced myself to throw everything on my bed so that I would have to put it away before I could lay down. And really that's what lead to all of this. While I was putting stuff away, I found an old journal. I've had this thing since junior year of high school, from what I can tell. It's so worn with markings all over, things crossed out. faded pencil. corners worn.I flipped through it, found monologues I used in high school, lyrics of songs I loved, a picture of Anderson Cooper from a magazine. (I.am.a.nerd.).
I dared myself to read some of the writing. And to my surprise, not all of it sucked. Sure most of it was fueled by melodramatic teenage angst (*angst*angst*angst*), but some of it still kind of got to me. Yeah, some of it is garbage, and a lot of it is pretty "emo", which if you do the math was really popular around, oh 2005, when a bulk of this was written. But I realized, I wasn't a terrible writer. And I was writing because I wanted to, because I had things I needed to get out and I started to wonder, what changed? where did that ability to craft words together go? (and how do I get it to come back for me...and my thesis...)
I haven't written in it in over year, since me and Mac started dating. There are about 10 pages left. I don't have the teenage angst, nor the same melodrama in my life, but I wonder if I can still write like that. Negativity was the catalyst for my writing for the longest time, maybe now I can close this notebook with positivity.

I'll let you know how it goes.