i believe in myself.

Since my cross country adventure with my brother in June, I have had an extremely messy car until today. My aunt and uncle would be so proud. ;) I'm never in my car very long and I never go in the backseat so I tend to forget what's back there until someone hops in and I get embarrassed. Since living with my aunt again I've become a very clean person. I'm thankful for that. :)

Anyway, I was in the backseat throwing receipts into a Trader Joe's reusable bag and I came across some receipts from the trip. My brother had a thing where he would print out the receipt each time and record how many miles per gallon we did. I only found 3 and he literally made little notes. It's really cute. I wish I had them all, I'm definitely going to save them.

I get very nostalgic about things. Movie tickets, concert tickets and flyers, directions to someone's house. Those are little things that are so personal but so simple. My most prized possession is a handwritten journal my mom wrote when she and 2 friends drove from the upper peninsula of Michigan to Texas where she met my dad for the first time then biked back up to Michigan. She took notes of which freeways she took, the places they stopped, what she ate and when she exercised. I found it again when I was back home and read it for the first time in probably 10 years. She's been gone 17 years this month so October is a hard month for me. Reading the journal was like listening to her speak, she used to say the cutest things and you forget little things like that after so long. I was so young too and when you're that age you're not thinking that your mother won't live forever. It's sad that I remember the last year of her life the most.

The journal spiked my interest in road trips again and I was really excited when the idea to come back to California popped in my head - it just felt right. I asked my brother pretty much right away if he would make the trip with me. I was surprised and happy when he agreed to do it. He had never been to the west coast before so I thought it would be an amazing experience for him. He got to experience the desert, the mountains in Colorado, Las Vegas then California. I think he liked the ocean at Venice the best. It was fun to be able to experience that with him. I also felt like it was something our mom would have loved to do with us. <3

I don't know what it it but I feel really inspired lately. The more I go out in Los Angeles the more I realize where I want to be in my life. This city has always made me push myself to be better even when I was the most down. I'm at a different place in my life and I've been through a lot since I was here last. I have goals now and those are helping me to get out of the rut I was in after adjusting to the move.

I'm starting to create and make plans for other things. It makes me feel whole again. They say you should follow your bliss and I much rather do that than worry. Everything works out okay, sometimes it just takes a while. I'm definitely grown to be a much more patient person this year.

My head is still spinning from all the changes I've experienced in the last few months. I didn't realize how much uprooting my life (once again) would take a toll on me. I've moved around all my life, you'd think I'd be used to it. It's not easy though, it breaks your heart a little bit each time. All of the goodbyes and the tears that follow.

Just 4 months ago I was a substitute teacher at a school I attended for only a few months my junior year. That was the only school where I never made any friends. I've moved a lot in my life and never before did I experience such a wall. I was probably a weirdo there but I was thankful for that. I've always loved being a little to the left or the right... off center but special. Haha, that reminds me of a friend I had in 4th grade. One day we were sitting at her counter and she was filling out a form of some kind and there was a box that asked if she was special and of course she said, "yes, I'm a special child!" I've always thought that was cute - it's crazy how our society changes our spin on things.

Anyway... substituting was such an odd experience. I filled in for every subject in every grade from kindergarten to 12th grade. You'd see the difference between the ages of 10 and 13 and how much a child changes (or warps) during those development years. Some children had parents in jail or on drugs and those were the kids with the most issues. Then you'd hear little jerks in the 9th grade say that they wished their parents dealt crack so they could have more money. I'd hear them call either gay and write "f----ot" on wide ruled paper as an insult. I always sent them to the principals office for that, no exception. I would fight with 13 year olds who didn't understand what "no talking" meant.

There's another theme I need to explore in this blog, substitute teaching. I was very silent during that time because people are crafty and I'm sure some know where my blog is. I can talk all I want now and Cassandraism.com is coming very soon. I finally nailed down a site design tonight - hopefully this week I'll have all the code down. Goals are nice to have.