journal – Letters From Liz.

Travel Diary: Poughkeepsie, NY.

July 18, 2017August 7, 2018 liz

*View of “Walking Across the Hudson”: Poughkeepsie, NY.*

Friday, June 14th – The Departure

After spending most of the week preparing and getting nervous for going away with Obie for the first time, it was finally time to leave and start our 3-hour ride to Poughkeepsie. My bag felt like it was overpacked because, by the time I left, I felt the almost 20 pounds weighing on my shoulder. We met up halfway to Grand Central because – let’s face it – Grand Central Station is huge. When we finally met up though, I felt the butterflies in my stomach. This was my first getaway trip with Obie; and for an anxious person like myself, I’m always thinking the most impossible “what if” scenarios whenever I do something for the first time. Anyway, we got on the subway to Grand Central, and thankfully found the ticket booth. Obie and I looked up at the departure times and saw that The Hudson Line to Poughkeepsie was departing in 5 minutes. We looked at each other and booked it to Track 33; we made it just in time.

The actual Metro-North train ride there wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. Obie was asleep for most of the ride, and I just listened to music while looking out at the view. It was cloudy on Friday, so when the train was near the Hudson River, it was foggy and cloudy and the water was calm and untouchable. I regret not taking a picture, but it really reminded me of the scenery of The Killing. Oddly, it was satisfying and beautiful to see. It was as beautiful as Obie described it.

By the time we got to Poughkeepsie, Obie and I walked over to the infamous store that he kept talking about when he went to Poughkeepsie previously. This corner store on the outside gave me some serious Pennsylvania vibes. Anyway, we got all the snacks that we needed for the night, all the drinks as well, and then we finally walked back to his niece’s apartment. When I tell you the apartment is possibly the most legit apartment ever… yeah. It’s a two-floor apartment with three bedrooms and two bathrooms, a nice little kitchen and dining area and living room. It was really such a chill place. She has two kids, so the kids have their own room, she and her boyfriend have the third one, so Obie and I slept in the living room on the couch. I don’t know we did it, but we did it. Friday we all just chilled and watched movies and rap battle and just macked.

Saturday, July 15th – The Sunburn and “Lituation”

Obie and I woke up around 9 in the morning, and we just relaxed and ate before we all decided to go to the park down the road with the kids. Not realizing it was going to be like 90 degrees, your girl had on a vest and jeans on. On top of that, the park that we went to had absolutely no shade, so I ended up with a slight sunburn on my face and my arms. I don’t know how the guys played basketball for 2 hours in that heat, but they were playing 2 vs. 2 with some other ball players in the park. I can tell when Obie gets competitive on the court; he moves more carefully and gets pretty rowdy, but it was a good couple of games. During the time I was sitting there and burning my skin off, Obie’s 5-year-old nephew, Cam, gave me a cute tiny flower. He is such a little sweetheart.

**12:35pm***: The tiny flower artsy picture.*

*Basketball Court in the Park: Poughkeepsie, NY*

After being in the park for the entire afternoon, Obie and I were the first to leave to head back to the infamous store (we went in there like 5 times in 3 days, to be honest), and go back to the apartment. We automatically took our well-needed showers because hello – he was sweaty from basketball and I was sweaty from baking out in the sun.

**2:39pm:** *The best Obie pictures are the off-guard ones.*

We both ate some lunch and immediately knocked out on the sofa together for a couple of hours… we’re that couple that sleeps most of our hours away together. Later that day, all four adults played Spades. Prior to this weekend, I’ve watched Obie play Spades with his friends back at his apartment and never played because I didn’t know how to play. So, Obie had to teach me and his niece’s boyfriend had to teach her. At first, I made some minor mistakes, but after playing a couple of games I was getting really good at it. I mean REALLY good. As #TeamCozy, we won most of the books in the game and now I’m slightly obsessed and want to play more. After that we all made dinner and everyone went upstairs while Obie and I chilled in the living room and watched some Netflix before quickly knocking out.

Sunday, July 16th – Relaxation & Going Home

Obie and I woke up around 10 o’clock in the morning and literally just relaxed until we couldn’t take the sounds of our grumbling stomachs. We both got dressed and went to the infamous store one last time to pick up a couple of goodies for our ride home later that night. Side note: Obie has been raving about these chips since this prior trip to Poughkeepsie and telling me how amazing they were. I finally got to try them and my god they are amazing. They are called “Rap Snacks”, specifically this flavor is his favorite.

*The infamous Rap Snacks from Poughkeepsie.*

After picking us up some Rap Snacks, we walked to the train station to get our tickets just so that we don’t have to rush when we finally decide to take off. We then got some pizza to take back to the apartment and from there we just chilled in the apartment until it was time to leave. Again, we took like a 5-hour nap that afternoon, and by the time we woke back up, it was time to get our things together to head back to the city. His niece took us to the train station, and from there we got on. We were heading back to the city; the vacation was coming to an end.

**8:50pm***: Train ride back to the City.*

We got back into the city at 10:30 at night, and from there we took the subway back into Brooklyn where Obie had called me an Uber to take me home. The Uber came, he kissed me goodbye, and the rest is history. I got home roughly around 11:30, and I was literally so tired that I ate some dinner and knocked out.

Reliving the weekend through this post is really making me think just how much fun I had this weekend. It wasn’t anything extreme, but I literally felt like I came back to the city as a brand new person. It almost felt like a cleanse; all the negative energy I had in me due to my surroundings and situations just washed off of me when I was in Poughkeepsie. I think I’ll always remember this weekend as one of the greater days I had in a really long time, and I hope from here Obie and I go on more trips together. We talked about going back to Poughkeepsie one day and do the things we didn’t get to do; one of them is to walk on the “Walking Across the Hudson” bridge. This weekend made me realize just how much I want to use my summers as a way to go on road trips and travel all over, and honestly, the only person I’d want to come with me is Obie. I want to see the world together with him. Cheesy, but so honest and true.

And that’s how my weekend in Poughkeepsie went.

-Liz (:

Voiceless Rant: The Series

A Voiceless Rant: July 2017 Edition.

July 11, 2017February 8, 2018 liz

I promised I’d be honest with myself.

I promised that I was going to live my life acknowledging every single emotion I was feeling and make it a priority because I lived in the dark for too long regarding them. I always believed that showing your emotions and putting them on the back burner was the “adult” thing to do. I realized it was not. I realized that in order to handle the good and bad in your life, you have to prioritize emotions from both sides of the spectrum. That’s right, no more showcasing only the good emotions and ignoring the bad ones. That’s not who I am and I refuse to conform to those “social norms” where communication is slowly dying. I refuse to play make-believe and pretend that the easiest way to a better life is simply just smiling in everyone’s face.

This isn’t a negative perspective, it’s a realistic one.

Continue reading “A Voiceless Rant: July 2017 Edition.” →

Self-Appreciation Saturdays

SAS: The Best Advice for the Planners in Life. (5/20/17)

May 20, 2017May 17, 2017 liz

I am a planner.

I feel the most organized when I have things thoroughly planned out in detail for every day of the week. It’s why my dry-erase board calendar is usually full during the month, I currently have a TNTH Schedule for future posts, I just started bullet journaling, and I had two detailed outlines on index cards for my final research papers taped alongside my desk for the last month and a half.

Obsessive? Yeah, but in some odd way, it calms my worries about the short-term things that need to get done.

The long-term goals? Planning those things can actually create the worries you don’t want. I know for me, planning long-term goals are scary because things happen. Things change, interests change. For years, I dedicated my time to get myself more into the cinema scene; I took screenwriting classes to learn my craft and planned the next three years to study screenwriting and film in a graduate school specifically made for cinema. For once, I had long-term plans that I was working towards. But then life happened. I was rejected from the film school and I felt lost with my plans again.

Although I am in grad school getting my Master’s degree anyway, it still feels weird to not know what I want to do after I graduate. I start my second year in the Fall, yet I don’t have any plans after I finish. All of the people I encounter in grad school have plans of being teachers and such, but I know I was not meant for that type of job. I like English for the writing, not for the literature, and teaching English is dealing with the literature. If I can’t do cinema, I would want to do something solely dealing with writing.

The group of people I know and follow on social media tends to be people who are already in grad school, are graduating college in the next couple of weeks, or going into their last year of college in the Fall. One of the things we all have in common at these different levels in our education is that we all either have a distinct goal in mind after college, or we have absolutely no idea what we want to do. Until we all feel like we’re getting somewhere in life, those long-term plans for life are going to be at the back of our minds and make us worry.

And if you’re a planner like me, these worries turn into bad anxiety.

A couple of weeks ago, I was going through a major anxiety attack about everything in life. Literally, everything felt like it was crashing down. I spoke to my mother to talk the worries out and possibly get some advice to help me out. My mother and I have most of the same personality traits, and I needed to speak to someone before I considered talking to a professional. She asked me what were the things I was getting anxiety over, and as I was telling her, they all seemed to be about my long term plans.

As my mother was giving me advice, she told me to “live in the present.”

Screenshot 2017-04-27 at 1.14.13 PM.png

Many of us forget that the most precious thing we have in the world is time. We are never granted another day or another year, and I learned that after my Uncle passed away unexpectedly earlier this year. We also tend to worry and stress out about the future so much that we never see the beautiful and wonderful things happening now. I remember my undergrad years as being a time where time just flew by. I was going by each day with the objective in mind of graduating on time that I never really enjoyed my college life. It wasn’t until my senior year of college where I actually started to enjoy my school life and just life in general. Although it’s great to try to have your life all figured out and focused in, it’s good to also enjoy the things around you. Enjoy your family, your friends, the weather, your interests, and hobbies. Also if you have a ton of work that you need to do in the present, get it done so that you can move on to the next thing you have to do. Sometimes, the constant work makes anyone feel robotic. The reality is that whether you like it or hate it, it needs to be done.

All in all, it seems like “living in the present” is a statement that appears to be obvious and cliche, but many of us just forget to do it because as a generation of people in our 20’s, we always tend to focus on the future. Take a step back every once and awhile to enjoy the little things in life.

-Liz (:

Topic Tuesdays: Random

Pros of Journaling.

May 9, 2017May 8, 2017 liz

Screenshot 2017-03-19 at 11.13.05 AM.png

For the entirety of 2016, I decided that I was going to journal write every single day until the end of the year. For the most part, I kept up worth it and the 300+ page journal I kept is now completely full of memories, moments, and simply just thoughts I had at the time. By the time the year was ended, I realize just how much journaling the entire year helped me shape into the person that I always wanted to be.

People dismiss journaling because people classify it being something that “emotional” people do to cope with their emotions. Where, yes, it’s a place where you most likely write your emotions down whenever you’re feeling them, but journaling could be s helpful when things get a little too much to handle. Nowadays, people keep bullet journals to help organize their life and make sure it keeps them on track, so it’s not always about writing to your therapist named “Diary”. I kept a daily journal for an entire year for one reason and one reason only: to make me feel better.

I came into 2016 from having such a rocky and terrifying 2015. I felt like I was slowly losing who I was and I needed to change it ASAP. I decided that I was going to keep a daily journal that would document the year 2016. 2016 was an important year for me because for the main reason that in June, I was graduating college. Who would’ve thought that there was so much more that I actually documented that are now life-long memories? It’s crazy how life works that way.

I don’t know why I stopped after 2016 was over, but I did. I noticed that towards the end of the year, my entries sounded a lot more like Facebook status updates instead of things worth documenting, but even after that – journaling really helped improve my mental health tremendously. I know everyone isn’t a writer and may not feel it be necessary to write in a notebook without a reason, but doing so helps you “talk it out” with yourself with words.

Sometimes, all you need to do is to talk out your thoughts to put them out in the world. Journaling does that while also keeping them confidential, just in case there are just some things you don’t want someone knowing like a family problem or health problem. Personally, I was going through a lot of family problems before I started writing in a journal. Although journaling didn’t help the problems go away, it did make it easier to cope and deal with my feelings in a way that didn’t make me lash out in anger.

I also wanted to start journaling to physically see the change in myself once I finished the book in a year. Although I haven’t had the time to read 365 pages of entries, I know I saw the change in just a few of the posts that I wrote. I began to write about the happy things in my life, as well as look at myself through an unbiased lens. It’s weird because I felt like journaling made me into a “real person” again because the journal had memories and moments told in my perspective, which meant I had to trust myself enough to believe these things happened the way they did.

The fact of the matter is that I was always a journal writer. I’ve kept journals since I was 9 years old, the difference between those journals and the daily one I kept was that these other journals spoke about things that happened because of other people. “Oh, this girl told a nasty rumor about me and I was so close to beating her ass at lunch today.” “Oh my god, my crush finally kissed me in the rain!” They were about moments that involved me, yeah, but these became impersonal because they never truly showcased any growing I did over the years. I actually just recently threw away a lot of my old journals because of this very reason. Why did I want to keep journals that never represented my journey?

Besides my middle school journal, the only other journal I kept was my 2016 journal.

Sometimes, journaling just shows you the journey that you forget about being on once you’ve already been there.

Because it’s already too late into 2017 to start a daily journal for the year, I’m planning to strictly keep a summer one. Because 2018 is going to be another big year for me, I might just start another daily journal then, to document that year’s accomplishments and big events that I can’t wait to actually go through.

Pick up a pen and book and start writing. Trust me, it doesn’t hurt to try. 😉

-Liz (: