in between dreams

volleyball

best stress reliever 

culmination to the end

In a month and two days, I will be graduating from Townsend Harris High School. Time is passing by too fast. The next few weeks ahead of me are going to fly by. There are too many events, too many trips, too many things happening that will make me excited and unaware of how little time I have left. In just a month, I will experience a mix of too many feelings that I’m not ready to face. I don’t want to  leave yet. There are still too many people I didn’t get closer to. Too many things I didn’t do. Too many words I haven’t said. Too many regrets. I need a breather. I would like to put everything on pause for a little bit. Leave me some time to gather my belongings from the dust.

heavy boots..

Anonymous asked: where do you usually buy your cute tank tops for summer?

oh wow i never received a question like this before.. hahah the vast majority of my tank tops are from jcrew and forever 21 :) i hope that helped!

an early morning tribute

How ironic it is that when my dad received the phone call this morning, I was too busy laughing at a youtube video to hear the news that was delivered. In all the years of my life, this may have been the most pathetic and ignorant laugh I have ever vocalized. Early this morning, in the New York Hospital of Queens, my neighbor Bob passed away. 

Mere words do no justice to this beautiful, kind hearted man that I met four years ago. Always a big, hulking, white-haired giant of a man, Bob sat in his porch with his wife Phyllis to greet all the neighbors that lived on our block. From the very start, he was so welcoming to my family, with no trace of the initial skepticism that often follows the introduction of a new resident in a neighborhood. Instead, we were the ones taken back by his friendliness and love to people he had known only for days. Even though my mom’s English was broken and my dad never had the time to go see him at his steps, Bob would always holler out to us as we passed his house everyday. The booming echo of his cheery “Hullllooooo Gina! Hulllloooo Glenn!” still resounds so clearly in my mind. At first, we would respond with quick “hello’s”, followed by a hastening of our pace to the few steps that led to our house. But after our initial awkward stage, we began to warm up to this man, and eventually went on to spend innumerable hours on his messy porch.

The layout was always the same. Bob would be sitting in his large rocking chair, which was loaded with cushions to ease his back pains. Next to him was a small table, which separated him from the swinging bench that his smaller, but also heavy framed wife always swung on, reading from her Catholic pamphets and occasionally praying with her rosary beads. My mom would always sit on the bench next to Phyllis, while my brother and I sat on adjacent lawn chairs across from Bob. The topic of conversation always differed, from Bob’s war days to his disabled daughter and his janitor son. On school days, we would always time ourselves, as it seemed that Bob was always so eager to talk, and that if we let him ramble on for too long, we would never be able to go home. Sometimes we’d stay for thirty minutes, maybe an hour if we both didnt have too much homework. On other days, we’d allow for ourselves to spend an hour on those chairs, patiently listening to stories from decades past. 

The summertime was slightly different. It always depended on the year, but sometimes we would spend hours at a time on his porch, often ordering food from the local diner to keep us fueled while we debated, listened, and laughed. Now that I think about it, some of the stories that we heard during those hours will now cease to exist but as a faint memory in our hearts. Phyllis isn’t nearly as outgoing as Bob, and she was never quite as passionate a talker as he was. His son Jimmy is an introvert with a speech impediment, and his only daughter is mentally retarded. A large majority of his anecdotes were told to those who were too young, too old, or too foreign to quite understand and remember his stories. Even now, as I write this, I only remember bits and pieces of his many words. As this man leaves the earth, so shall his stories and the reminders of the lives that he changed in the past. 

Somewhere along the line, we grew older. This is the part that places the largest burden on my heart, the part that keeps my tear ducts running. I don’t quite know why, but somewhere towards the end of junior year and the start of this year, my brother, my mother, and I slowly began to grow weary and tired. We were all growing increasingly occupied with our personal lives, and there was just not enough time to squeeze Bob into our so-called busy schedules. Our visits diminished to just weekly briefings, and more than once, we would respond to Bob’s hearty invitations with meek cries of, “I’m busy today Bob! I have two tests tomorrow! I’ll come tomorrow, I promise!” Needless to say, more than half of these promises were broken, with only a hint of regret on our parts. Bob was always so good to us, providing us with anything and everything we needed, but we were so hesitant to even send the smallest favors of thanks. Time was all Bob wanted, and that was the exact thing we regarded too highly to share with him. 

Bob was always ailing in health, but this took a turn for the worst after a fall in his house during October or November of 2011. He had to be hospitalized, and during his three month stay there, my brother and I visited him twice. Twice in over ninety days. The hospital was only a fifteen minute drive from home and a two minute bus ride from school, but I couldn’t even offer my beloved neighbor that. I still don’t understand why I was so reluctant to go, and the only thing that pounds itself into my mind is that my selfishness during that period was astounding. The first time we visited, Bob was asleep and wouldn’t wake up, so we left. The next time we went in December, he was awake, and I remember wishing that he was asleep so he wouldn’t see the tears that were threatening to pour down my face. The once handsome and large figure was now a gaunt, frail man who couldn’t even get up out of his bed without assistance. As we profusely apologized to him for not visiting earlier, he forgave us, only asking us to come again before Christmas so he wouldn’t be lonely. We exclaimed that we would, and our parting words to him were “We love you Bob.” I left the hospital feeling terrible, and I swore that I would drop by again as soon as I could, and that I wouldn’t take our precious neighbor for granted anymore. We never went. 

It pains me that I can’t remember if that was the last time he saw me or not. Bob returned home in January, but he was bed-ridden, so he never went out on his porch anymore. My parents wouldn’t let us visit him, because their house was extremely messy from years of neglect and they feared for our safety. I recall speaking to him briefly, I believe over the phone. He told me to visit, and I sweetly responded with an “of course, Bob!”, but once again, failed to live up to my words. The last time I saw him physically was a month ago, when I saw him being put into an ambulance to be taken to his regular dialysis. I called out a greeting, but he didn’t hear me, and I meekly walked into my house, feeling ashamed for leaving him in the dust for so long. 

Bob probably passed away with a sad heart towards me and my family. Oh, how it pains you to know that you disappointed someone until their dying day. I never truly met amends with Bob. I will never know if he forgave us for neglecting him, or if he didn’t even remember us as his soul parted quietly from his body. I will never know what his last words for me were, or if he had anything special to tell me before he passed. I will never receive his hugs and kisses as he sees me off to prom and graduation. I will never write him letters from college. In fact, I don’t think I even told him that I was going to NYU. 

Now, it is too late to ever visit him again, and as the skies part to a yellow sunrise, I must prepare to go to school and take my AP exam. Nobody there will know what happened to me as I woke to study this morning, and the world will not stop for me as I mourn and drown in my own regrets. Regardless, in a time like this, even an important test like this seems so petty. All I can think about is how I failed in so many ways. Surely we should not be crying over spilled milk, a past that we cannot rewind to, but in a way, I know that I must go through this stage so I can know never to make this mistake again. A child learns their basic mannerisms through constant repetition. I too, must learn through this method. Bob’s death is not the only one I have experienced in recent years, but it is definitely the most painful. A similar scenario happened with my own grandfather four years back, but because he lived with us only in his last months, the situation itself and how I feel towards it is different. 

On September 20, 2011, Bob told me to watch three of his favorite classic movies. I made a note on my iPhone to do, but in the midst of college apps and SATs, I never found the chance to. Instead, I read about them on IMDB so that I could strike conversation with Bob about them. He believed me when I said I watched them. Now, it seems that I have nothing left to do but to watch these movies in memory of him. I have nothing to physically offer him, but somewhere in heaven, I know that he will be pleased as he sees me viewing them. 

I guess I’ve always wanted the words “I love you” to be the last thing that a person heard from me. My wish came true, but not quite in the way that I expected. To anyone reading this, please take a second to remember a loved one that you may have neglected. Life is short. Don’t take yours or anybody else’s for granted. We were made to live, learn, and love. Do your part in all three aspects. Living and learning are important, but loving someone is the greatest thing you can ever do for them.