Tattoos on the Heart

I'm currently reading a book called "Tattoos on the Heart" by Gregory Boyle. It is outstanding. It was just what I needed. It is about a priest in the worst part of gang-ridden L.A. and how he deals with the gang members and reaches out to them.

I, unfortunately, missed him when he came to speak a couple of weeks ago. Had I read his book BEFORE he came, I would have ditched my class to go see him for sure! I wasn't sure how I was going to like the book since it was recommended by a very religious friend of mine and I'm not particularly religious.

But what the priest says, is in line with the part of religion that I do like, not the part that I find off-putting. What he says, basically, is that we have to love them.

We have to reach out to them and we have to love them.

A hell of a lot easier said than done, but a good message nonetheless. And one that I am trying to keep in mind and practice. But it is so hard. In the newspaper, today alone, I read about an altercation at an intersection where two groups were arguing and the guys in the SUV got out with MACHINE GUNS! They shot up twelve different cars and caused a major accident with a bus.

Then last night, at one of MY regular train station platforms, a man stole an iphone from a woman on the platform and pushed an old woman down the stairs as he was fleeing the scene. The old woman died.

This is the world we live in. How are we going to change it? Not by sending these guys to jail. That doesn't seem to be working. We don't have to love what they did, but can we find a way to love them? If we don't show them love and forgiveness, how are they going to learn it?

I think the only solution is to get to know them. Because once you know someone it is so much harder to hate them.

Anyways, it was a good book to come along as I am trying to make sense of this crazy world in which we are living.

hopes and dreams

Who are you to judge someone's hopes and dreams?

Can you really sit there and tell someone that what they want is not what they SHOULD want?

Of course not.

I think on some basic level we all have the same hopes and dreams which is to have our needs provided for and to be happy.

But it is the details that make life interesting. Because for some people having their "needs provided for" can simply mean having enough to get by every month without the bill collector breathing down their back. Yet for someone else that would mean having a vacation home in the Hamptons in addition to their posh New York City apartment.

As for happiness, that comes in a million different varieties. The happiest among us are those who learn to be happy with what they have.

I am happy with what I have. Yet I still have dreams of finishing my novel and becoming a published author. Will I be miserable if that doesn't happen? No.

So if I am happy now and will still be happy even if that doesn't happen, why do it?

Because I think I will be even happier if I do it. Because it's fun. Because I like having a challenge. Because I love the idea of sharing my words with other people.

But my dream is not for everyone.

My dream is not to cure heart disease, but I'm glad that someone else has that dream.

Being a top lawyer in a big firm might be someone's dream and that might make them super happy, but it would make me super miserable.

That's why we focus on our own dreams rather than worry about anyone else's. Occasionally we get the urge to share what has worked for us because we want to share our happiness and see other people be happy. But we must remember that what makes us happy, won't necessarily make others happy.

When I was younger I used to get annoyed that my parents never gave me much advice or guidance. But maybe they knew something that I didn't... maybe they knew that I had to figure out what I wanted to do and be rather than be what they dreamt me to be. Maybe they are a lot smarter than I gave them credit for.

So go ahead, share your dreams with others. Help other people to accomplish their dreams. But don't force your dreams onto other people or belittle their dreams.

Dream on.

allergies

Do you know what bothers me? Having allergies. Namely, feeling like my throat is about to swell closed. This is happening far too often, I actually contacted the doctor to do some testing.

But do you know what else bothers me? When people say, "Well, I don't have allergies and I blah, blah, blah..."

As if they did some special thing to stop themselves from having allergies. You didn't. You got lucky. Another person could do exactly the same things that you did growing up and still end up having allergies.

So you saying that you did the right things so that you don't have allergies is bullshit. And it's annoying. Especially when I am in the middle of an allergic reaction and am doing my deep breathing exercises to keep myself calm as I feel my throat closing as I wait for my Benadryll to kick in (and knock me out.)

I never had problems with allergies until I graduated from college. And now I have crazy allergies. Hives. Swelling.

Okay, um... so the benadryll is starting to work. Nikki is getting very tired. Time for bed. Love you.

what dreams may come

I'd be in much better shape if I stopped having nightmares.

But getting up at seven a.m. to go work out after I have been tossing and turning all night just isn't going to happen.

And why have I been tossing and turning all night? I don't know. I keep having nightmares, and not just any nightmares but anxiety nightmares. Before I had LASIK done (which I just finished paying off yesterday! Yippee!) I used to having a recurring nightmare where I was trying to put my contact in my eye but the contact kept growing and growing until it was the size of a piece of loose leaf paper! Try getting that in your eye!

My new anxiety dreams involve me not being prepared for things. There were a couple where I was back in school and was afraid I wasn't going to have enough credits to graduate on time. Last night it was that I was in a play and didn't know my lines and I knew that if I could just find a copy of the play that it would all come back to me- but I never found a copy!

Normally when I have anxiety dreams, I know what it is in my real life that is triggering them. But I've been really happy this week and I haven't been stressing about my mom too much. Weird. I'm going to blame it on the fact that I've been eating (and craving) a ton of meat lately. Maybe it is time to go vegetarian again.

state of mind

Do you ever notice that how our day goes matters less on what happens during the day than on our frame of mind?

When I'm in a good mood, hearing a crazy guy rant on the el can be one of those things that I laugh off and mark down as a funny story to tell my friends.

But if I am in a bad mood, hearing a crazy guy rant on the el can be one of those things that makes me angry and sick of my commute and hate the city.

But it isn't the world that has changed... it is me. It's all in my head.

I've been having a rather kick-ass week, and it isn't because anything spectacular has happened that hasn't happened some other week. It is because I have been in a positive mind set.

Unfortunately, it can sometimes take negative things to remind me of how lucky I am. Seeing all the devastation in Japan has broken my heart. I was looking around as I was riding the el the other day and I thought of how lucky I was to be able to ride the el. To have power. To have heat. To have the city that I love still standing. To not be worrying about a nuclear meltdown.

I'm pretty damn lucky.

But then to top it off, I've also been thinking a lot about this girl Heather that I play volleyball against. She just had a massive stroke and heart attack and is mostly unresponsive in a hospital for a few weeks now. She was only 42 years old. Think of all the plans and dreams that she had for her future. Think of all the plans and dreams that her boyfriend had for the two of them.

Your life can change in the blink of an eye, and that's the thought that makes me appreciate every second I have.

If you are not in the right frame of mind, all the money and all the fame and all the accomplishments in the world, won't mean a thing. But if you are in the right frame of mind, the little things can make your life fulfilling and happy.

Things that made me happy this week:
* seeing the first spring flowers start to poke out of the ground
* getting to talk to my friend on the phone at a time that I don't usually get to talk to her
* going through a photo book with my brother and sister and laughing at old photos and our family in general
* doing an impressive dive at volleyball
* purchasing my plane ticket for reunion and having that to look forward to
* finding out that everyone else in my class also thought that the Salman Rushdie story we read was really difficult and confusing
* eating some of the best french fries ever
* mostly though my favorite things were just the little interactions that I had with people- talking to Kevin's five and eight year old while on the sideline of volleyball, joking with the girl who signed me up for my next writing class, laughing with my client about touching her butt (don't ask!) and teasing my sister about not understanding how her iphone works despite having had it for over a year.

These are the things that make life worth living.

Part of me wants to get a tattoo on the back of my hand, something that will remind me of how much I have and how quickly it can be lost. Something to make me appreciate what I have and stay in the right frame of mind so that every week will be like this week.

junior

It seems like such a great family tradition to name your son after his father. And so on and so on.

Until your great great granddaughter is trying to piece together some family history and some family photos and every single friggin' person is named Nicholas Becker and you have no idea WHICH Nicholas Becker they mean!

And then, on my grandma's side, just to make matters more confusing. She has an Uncle Frank who is married to Aunt Francis.

She also has a Grandpa Frank who is married to Grandma Francis!

At least all the Nicholas' wives had different names!

hypocrites

I've been thinking about something that has been bothering me ever since I went to the Lady Gaga concert on Monday.

I went with a group of friends who are awesome. They are smart, funny, beautiful women who are very supportive of each other.

My friends and I have discussed body image and body issues several times. We all have recognized how hard it is to feel good about your bodies when faced with a constant bombardment from the media.

So my friends are very positive and encouraging to other women... as long as we are friends with them.

We talk about wanting to change the world and make it a more welcoming and accepting place and yet, when we were at the concert there was a woman wearing a crazy outfit (or I suppose at a Gaga concert it would be referred to as a "normal outfit") and my friends totally judged that girl and made comments about her body.

To be fair, they did not do it within her hearing. And I suppose they would argue that she shouldn't wear something that revealing if she a) doesn't have a perfect body and b) doesn't want people to comment on it. But isn't that the whole point we are trying to make?!? Shouldn't we be happy with our bodies and not feel the need to cover them up, just because they aren't perfect?!

And that girl might not have heard you, but other girls did. And that soaks into their brain. Sort of like how a man might say that he doesn't like women with plastic, fake, perfect bodies, but then you totally catch him checking them out. It registers in your brain and you remember that.

So when your friends hear you say something about some girl's body, and especially if that girl has a better body than your friend does, it is going to register in their brains. The insult wasn't directed at them but it still affects them. Because it that girl's body isn't okay, then your friend's body isn't okay either. No matter what you say to your friend directly about her body.

Don't you guys get that?!?!

You don't want to be judged. You want to be accepted. Yet you are still judging all these other women. It starts with you. And not just judging people you know, but people you don't know too.

Universal acceptance. Universal love. Jump on the train, people.