525, 600 minutes.

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes. 525,600 moments so dear. How do you measure a year?

I've forgotten, remembered, gained, lost, won, given and received much this year and now it's time to reflect. 365 days ago I was different. And 365 days later I'm sitting here, completely changed. Reincarnated.

At midnight this moment passed like every other moment and 2009 was officially gone. Nothing but a memory that would soon fade away as more years would come and go. As many usually are on New Year's Eve, I was with tons of people- most of whom I knew. It was then that I began to ponder the intricately interesting ways of how life is, the mysterious ways in which it works and how things can change so drastically in a matter of minutes or days. Day by day nothing changes but when you look back everything is different.

People are winds- They collide from the furthest regions of the world and combine forces to create friendships. Each day the course changes just slightly and as you look back on your journey you realize how far a distance you've traveled and what you've left behind, either for better or worse. And the people I saw today showed me just how far my course through 2009 has gone and how great it has been. I saw my coworkers who have become like family to me through 2009. I've gained much respect from them and for them. I saw my friends who have supported me through the year and whom I have built a strong bond with that only continues to grow. I saw others whom I would look onto as mere acquaintances and saw nothing more than the gaps we've filled between each other and while I'm the type to reminisce the loss of a friend- today, I'm not going to bother. You're here because you want to be. You mend distance with conversation because you choose to, not because I'm holding a gun to your head. I've put the Colt 45 down and waiting for you to decide. You ask how I'm doing because you care about the response that you get. I'm not an obligation and if you want to be with me, then you would. It is that simple. I'm that simple.

Looking back on past blogs I realized I'm an angry girl trying to make everyone realize that we have lost a lot. In reality I've done nothing but gain it all in other aspects. We distanced and I cried about it because I thought you were the best i ever had. Now I realize that you just didn't make the cut and in doing so I've found others who have stuck around and become my very bests of everything. I'm the type that likes to please and keep everyone in the palm of my hand just as I seem to be the center of all attention. Now I realize that the center I was placed in isn't where I belong and I've found that those I can depend on through thick and thin can be counted on each of my fingers, all of which are full today.

I've come a long way through realization and there's many that are proud of me and of the woman I've become, slowly. The ones I need stay so close at heart that they're just within reach when I need them most-- even when and if they're millions of miles away. I've come a long way in 2009 and I've done the best that I can do- which is more than enough. Coming this far was the easy part. I've got a long way to go and many paths unfolding daily ahead of me. I'm not sure of where I'll end up because life is uncertain just the way it should be. I do know that it'll be great only because I strive for excellence and the petty things that bothered me in 2009 will cease to exist as I step into 2010 with my best foot forward and leave you behind in the foot print that is 2009.

So when you see me on the street, wave big and smile. Miss me like I thought I had missed you and come to grips with the same reality I'm beginning to understand now- I don't need you and you're doing just fine without me. I'm not Miss Popular. I'm not Queen of the World. I'm simply me and I'll be the one you'll always remember.

2009 had its great moments but ultimately, and in my mother's eyes, it was a bad year. Economic downfall had hit not only the country but the entire world, hard. We're still suffering from the aftershock and we'll take some time to recover and balance out our economy. For 2010 we look for change and hope and a better tomorrow for ourselves and our children. For now we'll still cherish the mishaps of yesterday, enjoy the moments of today, and create plenty of memories tomorrow.

In 2010, I'm a new me. So come and feast your eyes on the Nikita:reincarnate. I'm not the girl you once said I was or thought I'd be. I'm much better. So enjoy it.

If I see you at this year's end, great. If not, good riddance. I won't be back. Stick around, enjoy the ride because it'll be the greatest thrill of your life. I bet my bottom dollar on that.

This is my second chance at life-don't spoil it with negativity, don't ruin good moments on enemies, don't waste time on impatience, consume less, learn from the best & heal, in time, with lots of laughs and love. Cheers to 2010

Medley.

"Violence has plagued the streets of many cities, schools, countries and families. It comes in many different forms and is committed by people of all ages and colors. It has scarred the lives of many victims and continues to thrive in third world countries, urban cities, and behind closed government doors. It has claimed the lives of thousands- each a brother, mother, father, sister, friend or lover. Those who once fought against nonviolence, Martin Luther King Jr, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, have seemed to be long forgotten. It is my passion to fight against these injustices and promote nonviolence. I fight against violence towards women, children, and even men, for gays and lesbians. I fight against violence towards each other, at homes, in schools, and on the streets. I fight to stop the violence against racial differences, over seas, against countries, through borders, and towards the earth. I support nonviolent ways to end wars, to end poverty, and to end addiction- sources of all violence. Living in a violent area of the city has put me face to face with violence each day. I feel the pain it causes and see the faces of the people who endure it daily. To make the world perfect we must get rid of these pains, my pains, the pains of the people who are different from me, the pain of the people who we do not fully accept in society as our own, the pains of those we choose to love and those we love to hate. " (Nikita Patel, April 8th, 2008)

Violence works its way through life like a plague. It's a disease and it's spread like an epidemic- worldwide. It buds from the seed of pain and blossoms out of hatred. It's witnessed by the eyes of newborns blessings and the eyes that can see no longer. It survives in every aspect of life. It puts the dingy hue on this beautiful thing called life. Violence begets violence and the vicious cycle continues and spreads like wildfire tearing families, splitting friendships, and breaking the closest bonds between mothers and their children, fathers and their sons, and brothers and sisters alike. It's unfair to those who can barely speak for themselves, stand up and have a say, and to those whose words are not audible.
No one likes violence yet it happens in front of our faces everyday.

She sits alone in her room and drinks to her heart's content most days. She reminisces of the past and the poison spills down to ease the burn that her mind triggers through flashbacks.
It started off as a child when he would come home every night and stumble up and down the front porch steps. She would watch her cry and beg him to stop but he never did hear her. She sat in a corner and witnessed the entire thing unfold all while combing back the hair on her favorite doll's pretty plastic face all done up with makeup and smiling big. She imagined that her mother looked just like her before. Before he had his way with her. Before she was born. Still she loved her mother and was too young to understand how her face stopped smiling so big, her stringy hair started to cover the black and blue hues her face came to know so well. How the new cuts and scratches appeared in different places every morning. And how one day she just disappeared altogether. She grew up and the pieces of the puzzle came together into a huge realization. And the pain was too much for her heart to bear. So she grabbed at the bottle and it numbed her body all the way down to her soul. She had good times in college. She was the top of her class and she smiled real pretty like her doll once did. The nightmares of her childhood stayed locked away under a trap door in her mind. No one around her knew it. She educated herself well. She did everything she was supposed to. Little by little the crowd disappeared around her. Soon enough she was sitting alone in her apartment talking to herself, laughing, telling jokes. She was in denial and her demon unlocked itself and sat on the couch laughing with her secretly gutting her sides with a blunt knife. And she fell apart...The DTs took over her body and she saw things that often weren't there. The demon played tricks on her and tried to take her under. She felt comfort around others and felt that she would be okay if someone just sat there and watched her sleep like her mother used to do. Little did she know that everyone was watching her sleep one last time so that they could say a prayer, cover her and finally close the casket on another wasted life...



Every once in a while I would wonder what he was doing right now. Just every once in a while. I had come to know little by little the terror that was his world. However, I had always known that he was blood and that I had to love him and everyone else the way it was because that's the way it had been given to me. I was too young to know him as a child but from the videos he seemed like a fun kid. I have flash backs of him- every morning I would jump up and down on his bed. He would flip out the insides of his eye lids and chase me. I'd see him in the family photos and be able to pick him out in a crowd easily. I would be excited to know that he was coming to visit. Little by little the pieces came together and his world fell apart... It's two days before Christmas and it's been over a year since I've heard his name. My heart was relieved only for it to be let down again. It seems we're all playing the waiting game until we finally have to close the book on this helpless case. I wish there was something I could do to fix this but I just don't know how. No one wants to give anymore because the effort that has been given over the years has been a waste and only caused more heart ache. It sucks to see you go this way... "A waste of a life" is what she called it because that's what it is. Every day you deteriorate and as you do you shave off a little piece of our hearts. When your gone we all think you'll be at peace so we can't wait to see you go. When your gone, you'll be in peace but for the remainder of our lives- we won't. I sure won't. I'll constantly believe that I could have done something. I constantly will think of things that we could have tried to help you. I'll constantly feel a piece missing to this puzzle, this portrait, this life.
You're supposed to be something to look up to- but you're not. You're the closest thing I have to a real one- but you're the furthest away from knowing who I really am. I don't understand what is wrong with you yet I understand the reason behind what you do and why you do it. Pull yourself together because you're ruining a lot more than just your own life.
You're bringing me down as well.

Dear Santa,
Fix it & Make him want to be better.
That's all I want for Christmas...

Christmas.

I walk around the city and just get lost.

I put my headphones on, shuffle up my IPod and walk around the city that I know and love so much. I let my feet guide me to unfamiliar places and get lost in my own private adventure. I find things I like, people I love to watch, and scenery that my eyes capture like vivid photographs. Being a city girl I find the beauty emanating out of the concrete paved sidewalk, the lustrous sheen off the windows of tall skyscrapers, traffic jam up and down Market Street and the bustling chaos that embodies this urban jungle home of mine.

I lose myself within the crowd and then count to ten, like a good old game of Hide-N-Seek, I go find myself. And discover something I never saw before, the actual beauty within my world. I roam around downtown and I see the pretty lights and everything sparkles. The colorful Christmas trees gleam out behind the frost covered shop windows displaying messages of "Season's Greetings" and "Happy Holidays." The lampposts have been decorated with Christmas wreaths and tinsel. The lights throw in a soft glow down the long corridors of the these city streets. It makes it absolutely beautiful compared to what it usually looks like in, hmm Mid-March, let's say.

I see couples walk hand in hand and children bundled up with stuffy noses catching the bus. I see everything, I see life and the beauty it encompasses. Something that in recent months a lot of people, especially me, lost sight of. I see that this world is good and that the people in it are great- Each created in God's image. (Yes, I read the Bible today) I walk around and I lose myself and all my problems. The budget cuts don't bother me, finals can't stress me out, my fingers aren't memorizing the chords on guitar strings, my brains isn't computing the derivative of the function f prime of x, and for a split second global warming and the desperate search for a cure of cancer doesn't worry me. The music shuffles in my IPod and the world is perfect and world peace has been achieved.

Christmas is a great time to walk around and enjoy the city life, or any type of life for that matter. The malls are packed with shoppers going crazy trying to prepare for the big day. Restaurants accomodate large Christmas luncheons and fill up with hungry people finishing up with all their last minute purchases. Smiles can be seen everywhere. Hopeless romantics clutter around department store counters looking for the perfect necklace, set of earrings, Coach purses or perfumes. Parents try to decipher and locate all the toys on the "Dear Santa" lists that their hopeful children believe Santa will deliver under the tree. Gifts are wrapped up and tied gracefully with a bow for each of their bosses, his teachers, her parents and more. Many try to remember whether their roommates favored pink or orange better and others treat themselves to their own "Merry Christmas" gifts. Post offices fill with people sending parcels wrapped with love cross country or over seas. Grocery stores speedily stock and restock shelves as everyone begins to prepare for their feasts. Everywhere you go people's hearts are full and the recession doesn't seem to show any effect on this season of giving. However, the best gifts given are those that come from the heart.

(unfinished)

I've been a bit lazy so I really didn't finish this one in time. I really don't know where I'm going with it....I'm just writing whatever comes to mind.