Im back: Not that I ever left...

So I haven't posted anything on here in several months.

Its not that I haven't written anything, i've written plenty. But its not all happy fluffy stuff ready for the world.

I write a lot, on a bi weekly basis I spend time recording my thoughts and reflections. I write a lot about my childhood. I write about my family and my artwork. Sometimes I write about my relationships and world events. But mostly about my childhood, and I don't post it.

I keep it in the "vault" as a professor of mine would say...

Its not that I'm ashamed of my words, Its just that, how do you know when it is time to let things go. I was a happy kid I guess. I know there are millions of children who had much worse childhoods than me. And maybe thats why I don't post it. Maybe I feel like I'm whining. But I always tell people,

No matter what your feelings are they are valid

but then I have always had a hard time telling people how I feel. Logically, feelings are irrelevant I tell my self, especially when I have to make tough decisions. But my job has tuned me in to the real world fact that feelings are not irrelevant. Feelings start revolutions and they are able to unite people who have nothing else in common. Feelings make people travel thousands of miles to rebuild the homes of strangers, feelings are what push people to enter into life threatening careers. As essential as feelings are to the human condition, I'm still bad at them. I ruin things because I have such a hard time vocalizing them. Thats what a lot of my art is about to me. Its about pent up feelings and words that logic has shunned away.  Maybe thats why I don't share all of my writing. A part of me says that acknowledging those feelings will not force a positive outcome so logically its not worth the effort.

But if thats true why do I write them down. They are not the kinds of stories id ever read to any future children. They don't really express any universal truism that will shatter the current process of thought, if they were id share them. But they do express how I feel about times in my my life that were particularly painful and difficult for me. And whats the point in sharing that. I mean I'm not a comedy writer nobody reads this for laughs. But don't you just hate reading depressing things.

Sure Schindler's List was depressing, but at least there was an ultimate greater good served. Like Water For Chocolate is really sad too but all is well at the end. Maybe im just waiting for my happy ending, as much of a cliche as that is. Maybe I'm just waiting for a time in my life when I can look back and see how my experiences shaped me into the glowing example of human triumph and success. I might just be waiting for the day when I can talk about such experiences and not feel like I'm whining despite my privilege. Or I just don't think its worth the social recoil i'd get, humph whatever... we'll all just have to wait and see.

My Life as a Cat Slave

How I know its time to go to bed.

1. One of my cats scratches at the door, usually the little one who likes to sleep with me whom I call Kitty Princess.
2. She makes the rounds then sits at the foot of my chair and meows until I put her on my lap.
3. I hit up the ususals of my internet browsing, email, Facebook, National Geographic, then the never ending Tumblr. 
4. After 20-30 minutes of that its off of my lap then a flurry of fur sprints to the bathroom where I follow and confirm that there is food and water as I had confirmed for her a few hours earlier.
5. While she munches I brush my teeth wash my face and glasses then get into bed.
6. Just as I am falling asleep she leaps up onto my chest. 
7. Purring loudly for the next few hours she stays there and keeps me quite toasty.

How I wake up.

1. Little Kitty Princess as I call her, sleeps peacefully on my chest.
2. One of my other cats, usually the one my mom calls Blackie scratches on the screen outside my door, at 2 am.
3. She proceeds to do this until I let her in, Blackie takes about 5 tv minutes to make the three foot trip. She wants to look out for the other cat Big Whiney as she will hit her in the face if she can.
4. Once she is in I can go back to sleep, for a while.
5. 20 minutes later Kitty Princess decides once again I am the optimum sleeping perch and I am awoken by a pounce on the chest.
6. Then my mom wakes me up at 9 with "Why are you still in bed," with Kitty Princess still sleeping on my chest...

ehh its vacation im not going to complain that much...

Now

I want to go to the forrest.
I want to sleep among wooden giants.
I want to see the stars,
 to see the moon,
 and the planets,

To escape the city, just for a night just for a moment.

Just to get away from the everlasting hum of fluorescent bulbs
 to escape the hard unforgiving concrete that surrounds me
 to inhale and smell the earths soft breath

to finally release the tension
set betwixt my shoulder blades

I want to open my eyes and see stars not concrete

I want to inhale the moon, suck up the sea and lay on the rivers lonely coast
to shed the iron flakes that have settled where sunshine once rose, to awaken to a day on a lawn of freshly borne stones still warm from the womb of the earth

Yet here lay in my bed trapped by 17 floors of pure civilization

Religion and Food Part III

      I also found my self spending my evenings cooking more and more elaborate dishes. I went from watching Meet Joe Black and eating Mac n' Cheese, to watching the Dalai Lama speak on TED and cooking roast chicken with glazed sweet potatoes and fresh lemonade. I remember watching one of his talks and wishing one of my friends from home would call, and hearing him say "if we all just treated each other the way we want to be treated the world would be a much better place" or something to that effect.
     After hearing that I wondered why don't we apply that idea to more of our lives? Why do we only think of that when we some one who is homeless, or when we see benefit programs to support people in a disaster situation. Why don't we apply that when we are waiting for someone to call, why don't we apply that when we see a friend who you can tell wants to say something but can't. Why don't we empower our selves to call, why don't we tell our friends I can see you want to say something, whatever it is I care about you and always will. Why do we let cultural manners dictate how we conduct our feelings and how we function among others. We don't determine what station we are born into, why discriminate those who were born a different race, nationality, or ability. We don't like being discriminated against why discriminate others.

     I let that moment, the one where I was sitting in my tiny apartment window ledge huddled over a plate of roast chicken and sweet potatoes, to be my epiphany.

     I took it upon my self to let that simple phase be my guiding light:
   
Treat others how you want to be treated

     This simple phase can be applied to everything from helping those in need, to taking a shift for a coworker, to simple things that can make someones day; like buying the meal for the person behind you in the drive through, spending the day watching movies with a sick friend, calling some one you haven't heard from in months, accepting the fact that people make mistakes and letting things go, buying an unexpected gift for a friend or even a stranger.

     While the phrase is simple the idea can be difficult. Sometimes I can't believe the things that people do and I want to get so very very angry, but I remember how hard it is to take responsibility for your mistakes and I let go, if my anger and work towards a solution I can put my energy to better use.

     While this is an idea expressed in Buddhism its only one of the many views. However I am not a true Buddhist. Im not exactly ok with the whole reincarnation idea, I think there is something after death, but Im not sure if its heaven. But the levels to enlightenment thing Buddhists believe in is a little hard to believe in. I believe more in the teachings of the Dalai Lama than Buddhism. He has a really good talk about all paths to god which I am a believer in. I don't care what you believe in, whether it is science, or islam or paganism, or whatever, as long as you strive to do good without hurting others and allow others to believe in whatever they want its good with me.

      So once a week when some people take time out to to to church, or temple or pray with their families, I sit in my apartment cook something delicious and I feed my soul as well as my body. I sit, enjoy the food I am lucky to have, and dedicate an hour or so to fill my soul with positivity. It might be a TED talk or a sermon streaming from the Dalai Lama, an empowering documentary, a youtube clip, whatever. Its not always religious, but it always presents a new perspective or idea.

     So once I fed my soul as a result of feeding my body, but I have come to a place where I feeding my body has just become part of the ritual of feeding my soul.

Religion and Food Part I

     When I was a little kid I used to drive for 45 minutes on Sunday with my mom to go to church.
My sister my mom and I would be dressed and out the door so we could drive downtown and sit in the pews with my grandparents for hours and hear these old people tell stories in sing songey voices then eat these weird little pieces of bread.
     We weren't Catholic as people often assumed if ever mentioned these never ending services, we were Episcopalian, which Johathan Rhys Meyers has explained to me through The Tudors is very similar but very different. Same beliefs and all, but women can be priests, it doesn't matter who you love aka being gay is ok, no nuns or monks, divorce is more acceptable, and various other changes.
     As a child I didn't really listen to all the speeches, I preferred to color. Sunday School wasn't really my thing either. I mostly went for the company, because I liked buying fancy clothes to wear to church, and the food.
     Almost always after church we would go to lunch with my grandpa and my grandma. I really liked going out to eat and I liked being with my grandpa and grandma, so as a kid I mostly went to church for the food.
     As I got older I didn't have time to spend 7 hours every week at church and lunch, or chunch if you want to call it that. And I began to be bored with coloring and sometimes I found my self actually listening to the old people in the front talking. I agreed with some of it, I really liked when we all shook hands and said, "Peace be with you" and in reply heard, "And also with you" but there were parts I didn't get. Like why we needed elaborate stories about cutting babies in half to learn compromise. And stories of miracles and fabulous feats to teach ethics, and whether or not we are supposed to take these stories as fact. Why did ideas of compassion, compromise, friendship, and empathy need to be veiled with strange tales for them to matter to people.

     As I got older I became disillusioned with the christian faith, I did not believe in the spirit in the sky, and there was no where to go when you died. I did not see any thing other than just ending.

     But it became hard to believe in nothing.

The Ends and Beginnings

When I was about three years old I saw a t.v. show that would change my life forever. I was watching a marathon of Mr. Rodgers with my Grandpa. When suddenly the smiley old man with a fondness for puppets and zip up sweaters was replaced by a man with sandy blonde hair and tiny santa-like glasses. It was Rick Steve’s Europe and he was visiting Paris. I remember sitting on my grandpa’s lap with my eyes glued to the screen.

He went to Notre Dame, scaled the steps of Montmarte, walked the Champs-Élysées, went on Le Grande Roue, all of the things you are supposed to do in Paris and few more. But of all the things in Paris it was the Louvre that enchanted me. Its history as a royal palace, its strange pyramid in the courtyard, but most of all Winged Victory. How could something with out a face or arms be so beautiful and so elegantly capture movement. I think my child self resolved that it must have been an unfortunate angel who fell in the path of Medusa and was turned to stone, in my mind there was no way something like that could have been made by a human. In any case this city captured me in such a way that at a very young age I knew that I would go to Paris someday. It was not a mater of if but to me I saw it as something that was going to happen, someday I knew I would be walking the banks of the Seine with Notre Dame on the horizon. Even at the young age of three I would tell people that I was going to Paris, it was just a matter of  time.

It was afternoons like that one spent at my grandparents house watching PBS shows, building blanket forts, making dolls out of socks with my grandma, or racing my sister to the lone swing that hung from the largest Pecan tree this side off the Pecos river. That I miss the most from my childhood. I spent so much time with my grandparents by the time I was in kindergarden I had picked up a little bit of their Texas accent.

I remember one day during the dreaded reading group time, which I hated because I already knew how to read, this ornery little kid called me out for saying y’all in front of the whole class. It was incidents like this that made me dislike the people at my school, I enjoyed learning, I just was not so hot on all the kids there, I continued to visit my Papa and Grandma every day and I further retreated into their love. The children in my class thought it was silly that I was going on trip “someday” they were very set on making me feel that I was very odd. At that age I didn’t know anything else that I might want as a grown up, I just knew that someday I would go to Paris.

After school and during vacations and summer I stayed with my grandparents while both my parents worked.  My sister and I would do puzzles with my grandparents, help them in their acre with raking and cleaning up after their fruit trees an garden. In the mornings when my mom would drop us off I would help my grandpa. I would go into his room and help him button his shirt, put shaving cream on his face, help him shave and get his dentures for him from their glass.  Then we would sit down for breakfast. By that time my grandma and my sister would have ate already and would be in the yard working, but Papa and I would always spend our mornings together.

My Papa kept needing more and more help from me in the mornings, eventually I wasn’t enough help for him. I knew that he had cancer, but at the age of seven I just thought It was something that all old people got. First my dad and I had to make all theses ramps for him and his walker which was decorated with every sticker I could get my hands on. Then It was a shower chair and a wheel chair. Next was a hospital bed, then meals in bed, oxygen and a nurse. One day my dad came to pick me up from school early, I thought it was for my sisters Open House but he took me to my Grandparents house where my sister and my Aunt Sherry and my Grandma were and they told me he was gone. I remember going into his room but all I remember seeing are his skinny long feet touching the foot of his bed, his closet open reveling the classic Members Only jacket he always wore, and the owl wind chime that hung from a corner of his room. I remember feeling really sad and crying for hour

When my grandma passed away my junior year of high school, the woman who took care of me as a little kid, the woman who taught me to sew the woman who kept my papa’s memories alive by telling his stories through her tears, and so many other things.  Ironically my grandmas passing allowed me to complete the one thing I had always known, that I needed to go to Paris. She left me enough money to fund me to go on a class exchange program to France for a month.

   Its funny how things end up how our beginning tie our end, how falling in love with an idea in an orange chair can land you swimming in the Mediterranean sea with the taste of salt tingling your skin and the sun illuminating your oldest dream. I was so so sad when she passed,  I still am, but at least now there is a hope that  somehow they will find each other in the heaven they so deeply believed in.

Time, Food and Stuff

Its November, NOVEMBER!
     Time just seems to have flown away so quickly. I feel like a few weeks ago I was back in Cali on a road trip with my bffl. But in reality its been almost a year.
     Im finally going home next month for the first time in a year. I am so excited. I get to see my parents my family my friends and my dog! Its only for two weeks, but I still get to go home. I love Chicago and traveling and art and all but a year is a long time especially when you are only 19. I finally booked my flight and scheduled it all so everything is set now I just wait for the semester to end.
     There's so much I've missed in the past year and so much I miss. I missed graduations, birthdays, holidays, parties, parades, shows. Im more concerned about what miss though.
     Like In-and-Out I have been craving some since last November, when I went home for Christmas last year I didn't go and I really just want a burger and fries for less than $20.
     And Costco, samples, samples, samples all fo free! Bulk, buying things in bulk, like almonds and toilet paper, and chicken I miss shopping in bulk if I could here I would only have to go shopping once a semester! I can also get film put on CD for like $2, this why I refuse to go and get it done at Walgreens for $15
     Hagens, its a Sacramento staple and its darn good!
     Leatherby's, I sadly found out is actually a chain, but i still miss devouring banana splits in less than 10 min with my dad.
     All the thrift stores. Theres probably more in chicago than in Sacramento, back home there all just a few blocks away on one street!
     Raku firings! My high school ceramics teacher lets alum come and fire, but the open flame is a "fire hazard" so theres no raku at SAIC Id have to go to Hyde park or Lil street and take a class if I wanted to do that.
     Of course almost everything I miss is food related.....
I also miss adventures with my friends, walking to the river with my family and going off trail and almost getting lost, giving tummy rubs to Mr. Noodles brother, Mr Noodles! Being snuggled by my kitties, laughing at my parents playing Just Dance, Singing on Guitar Hero with my sister... and lots of other stuff.
     Im ready for thanksgiving break with my sister in Chicago, and im really ready for Christmas with my family in Sacramento.

Sleep, or lack there of...

Sleep, all I want in the world is sleep.
In High School when I told people I was going to Art school, they were often confused and said things like:
 You're so smart why aren't you going to real school?
Oh, you are going to have so much fun!
So what do you draw?

First off I don't draw. I wish i could, but I am horrible at it and it does not bring me any enjoyment. Secondly, who said art school is not "real" school? I go to an accredited university which is consistently in the top five for most influential schools nationally.
Fun, oh how I miss fun.
Every day I have between 10 and 3 hours of classes, then between 6 and 20 hours of homework that is due the next day. Not including homework that is due the day after that or long term projects, due the next day.
So things like sleep, fun, and general "me" time are put in the back burner until the most glorious days of the week, Saturday and Sunday. I sleep so much on friday night it is sometimes not worth it to change out of my pajamas because by the time I wake up on Saturday its already evening. So I sleep as much as I can on Friday and Saturday night because sunday is the start of the week all over again. I work on projects, If it wasn't for my sewing machine I would be running to the sewing lab every few hours to work on something (thanks mom and dad). I try to talk to my parents and the rest of the outside world, sometimes I forget that the universe doesn't end at Lake Michigan. If there's time i'll cook if not I allow my self to leave my room and go to the dining hall for dinner. As awful as this sounds I don't mind it that much. I like being busy it keeps me out of trouble sometimes ill take 5 to have a cup of tea and reflect on how amazing it is that I get so much done. Once thats over its time to get back to work.
Work
Work
Work
Work
Work
Sometimes all I do is work. I don't sleep that much, eat food that isn't pre prepared for me, or even leave my room. I just sit at my desk sewing, typing, and designing until I end up with a fabulous garment, concept board, or essay. And then I sleep and some times like today I fall asleep for 20 hours and it is fabulous. So friends, family, people of the outside world, if you don't hear form me for a while, I'm working, and if i'm not working i'm bathing in the glory of sleep. Every now and then I have a few minutes between sunrise and school where I write a letter so you all at least someone knows I haven't died yet. But in all reality all I want is:
Sleep
Sleep
Sleep
Sleep
Sleep zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Hollywoodland

     I watch so much TV.
Not even good TV, just TV for TVs sake. Just to watch something and get lost in another world and forget about things. Lately I've been watching a lot of "emotional dramas with a strong female lead" that's netflix for ya, they uber genreize everything you watch. They always end up being about women who go through a dramatic change, and almost always end up falling in love with someone who snaps them out of it. And there's almost always at least a good chunk of the movie is set in California. Why do people think its the place to fall in love?
     I don't know why I'm even asking this question. I know why, its something in the air there something every one who has ever spent a good deal of time there has felt but couldn't quite explain. Something in the way it always smells like flowers even in January, something about the way the sunshine there radiates deep into your soul, where the sun everywhere else just warms your skin. Every thing just seems richer there, more intense. I understand now why so many people want to move there, and why so many people do.
     California is the land of people from somewhere else. Many people who live there have moved from another state or even another country, its not like Ohio, the people who live there are there because they want to be not because they have no way out. I guess that's why people want to watch movies about it, so they can escape there if its just for ninety minutes.
If you cant tell I think I'm getting a little homesick.

Escape

     I like walks. I like the wind in my hair, the feeling of the ground under my thin flip flops, the noise they make as I wander, the feeling of the outdoors, and the freedom to go any where.
     When my family moved to our current home in Sacramento we were excited to be closer to the bike trail. "We will go every weekend now its so close," we said. "We can even bike to the lake," we said.
But the thinking of going biking all the time is very different from actually doing it. We constantly ran into excuses. "My bike has no air in it." we said. "It's too hot" we said. "We're too busy," we said. "I don't even have a bike," I said.

     As much as we originally said we would go biking, it just never happened. Then on my 16th Birthday my friend came over, we wanted something to do, but we didn't have a car, and Sacramento isn't exactly known for its public transportation. So we resolved to for a walk to curb our restlessness.    
     As we reached the bike trail, the sounds of the city faded away. Long gone were the sounds of cars whizzing by on the pavement. Lost were the sounds of kids and their dogs. We left the scent of freshly cut grass and boiling asphalt behind. We had barely walked half a mile and the only trace of humans was the bike path and the neat yellow line running down its belly.
      Along the trail we saw wild flowers bursting through the grassy meadows, dear grazing and pausing to see who was passing through their emerald lands. We heard the calls and chirps of finches, crows and magpies, working a symphony with the ra-ta-ta-tap of woodpeckers and the constant wushing of the river.
     As we reached the river we were greeted by the uneven and smooth stones under our feet, the cold tickle of the water under our toes, the smell of fresh earth in our nostrils, and the sight of this beautiful oasis tucked into the outskirts of suburbia.
     Since then my family and I have made the short trek to the river many times. During the summer its our weekend ritual to walk down to see the sunset, and feel the cool breeze as we escape from the heat of Sacramento.
     This summer is different. I decided to spend it in Chicago to continue my studies, and I am working for SAIC as a Summer Resident Educator. (its like being an RA, but for the high school students who are studying here for the summer) So i've been missing the escape the river had always brought me.

     Chicago is a much bigger city than Sac and also boasts its own river, but it is surrounded by concrete and even had its flow reversed in the 1900's because it was polluting Lake Michigan. I crave the escape the calming summer sunsets the river brought, the escape from noise and people. In Chicago its hard to get away from city life. The beach is fake, its sand imported, it lacks a tide, and the people who visit it take no regard for others so its littered with every thing from wrappers, to broken liquor bottles and even clothes. Its noisy with seagull calls, car honks, and police sirens. The shores of the beaches provide no escape for me.

     The only place that brings me peace is a gated park just north of Navy Pier, Olive Park.
 -Its named for a Chicago native Milton L. Olive III, who served in the Army during Vietnam. He gave his life for his fellow soldiers when he threw himself over an enemy grenade he was posthumously awarded a Medal of Honor and a Purple Heart.-

      Its such a peaceful place, the tree lined main path reminds me of the bike trail back home. The cool breeze from the lake washes over you and takes the sticky humidity of the city away. Deeper in the park is a fountain long drained of its water, providing a gathering place for water after summer showers. Its here that reminds me most of home. I sit on the edge of the fountain with my toes in a puddle, leaning backwards to lay my body on the dewey grass that surrounds it. If I close my eyes and put on my headphones, I can forget everything on my mind. I can ignore the noise of the city. I can escape the smell of warm sewage and sweaty tourists. I can leave the taste of dirty air behind. I can forget all my worries, and my homesickness for my river path. I can forget how much I miss my parents, and my dog. I can forget all things I have to do, to remember whats important, and for a moment I am back home sitting on the edge of my river with my toes in the water my body on the grass, and my head in the clouds.

"No"

    The best piece of advice my father ever told me wasn't  really advice at all. It wasn't "never wear white after labor day", "or always look people in the eye", it was more of a philosophy.
      "The worst thing someone can say to you is no,"
    It became one of those pieces of fatherly advice that became cliched. When he begin to speak those words and my sister and I would butt in and finish the line before he could. We had heard it so many times that by the time we were in high school we just wished he would stop giving advice at all. But when it came time for college applications my junior year of high school all I wanted from him was advice.
    I had decided when I was very young that I was determined to have a job that I loved. Not just a job that I could survive and paid well, I wanted a job that made me excited to get up in the morning and sad to leave at night, no matter what the salary was. The only thing  I had found at the age of 16 that made me feel this was was creating art. Art being art, I knew money was something I was going to have to sacrifice for the joys of being an artist. So when searching for colleges I always cross referenced ceramics and fashion, my two real loves at the age of 16. This led me to the discovery of Art colleges, institutions where everyone was after the same thing I was, the dream of being paid to do what you loved. As much as I loved this idea of going away to study with those who also loved creating, expressing, and showcasing their thoughts and experiences through art, I was terrified of telling my parents I wanted to go to art school.
    My parents had saved money for my sister and I to go to college since before we were born. In every christmas bonus and birthday check they selflessly put away money not so their dreams of taking a Parisian vacation or an Alaskan cruise could come true, but so our dreams of becoming A helicopter pilot and the President, (my sister and my future careers according to out uncle) could be a reality. However this "dream career" my parents presented to us came with the idea that we would surpass our parents, make lots of money, and make them proud. At the age of 16 I slowly began to dread talking with my parents. Every dinner conversation, car ride and neighbor hood walk, I feared they would ask, "So, have you decided what you want to do about college?" I feared this question more than failing a math test, more than taking the drivers test, more than I feared the SAT's. Because in my mind telling my beloved parents who had sacrificed so much for me to be better than them that I wanted to go to art school was like me telling them, "I know you want me to go to school get a good job make lots of money and be happy and not struggle in life, well instead of that I am going to make stuff and try to sell it, be famous and maybe homeless in the process." I saw art school as a pipe dream, something that everyone has in their back pocket that they know will never be, like sleeping with a playboy bunny, or solo sailing across the globe.
    Then one day after my father picked me up from swim practice and we began talking about how I wanted to ask one of my teachers for a letter of recommendation for a scholarship I was applying for. However I knew my teacher was a very busy man and had a general "No" answer for these types of things. My father being my father, he started off with his usual rant, and like an epiphany had struck me I actually listed to him and his obnoxious advice for the first time in years.
     "Well, the worst thing he can tell you is no."
And it hit me, truer words were never spoken, it was true my teacher could only tell me no, he couldn't deny me the scholarship, or fail me for asking such a ridiculous question and so I realized that the worst thing my parents could say was no, they couldn't crush my love of art or take away my creativity, they could only tell me that no, they wouldn't pay for art school. This was the first time in years I had actually listened, I mean really listened and saw the sense in his words, to a five or ten year old this phrase was just the sputterings of a weird old guy, at that age the worst thing some one can say is , "We're not getting ice cream" or "You are not going to that party." But at 16 I finally made sense of his madness.
     I finally had the courage to tell my parents that I didn't want to enter college "undecided" or reply to their queries with the standard "I'll get a degree in business" I could finally tell them "I don't want to get a degree in business, or go to a UC or even go to a regular college I want to go to art school, " and know that the worst thing they cold say to me was no.
     So that night after Jeopardy, and reruns of Star Trek I told my parents that I had decided what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, I nervously told them and my mom being my mom said,
"You know we will love and support you in what ever you decide to do in life."