Let me be clear

There has been no questioning or prompting from outside sources, but I've been thinking that I needed to explain my writing a bit.

If you look back over the history of my blog, my writing peaks in times of sadness, and hardship. Heartbreak, in particular, seems to be my muse. It is when I am most open, in tune, and the words are immediate. They are raw. When I'm not struggling with something, I don't have much to write about. 

I've never kept a blog that is just day-to-day humdrum. That's not what this outlet is for me here. This is my heart-on-my-sleeve, pour-it-all-out, cathartic, therapeutic, artistic outlet for words. I have always said how much I love words. I love putting my feelings into form on the page. 

I like my writing, I take pride in my writing. I love the connection it gives me to others, when I hear feedback that I am speaking for / to them. 

But what I want to make clear, is that I put into words fleeting feelings. All feelings are temporary. My writing is poetic. It is not always literal. 

What I mean is, I am not living in sadness 100% of the time. I have moments of great happiness and excitement through the day, on any given day. I am finding as I get older, my natural state is optimism. I can't be held down for too long, without naturally bouncing back. Even when it means loosing the muse. 

I am not literally waiting for the one who broke my heart to bound back through the door, making our family whole again. Like any human, on occasion, I miss the good times. I do not miss the bad. I would not accept the bad again.

I am working through feelings when the flashes of hurt hit, and it feels so good to get them out here. I love the art of it, that the simplest flash sometimes spins into the best blog. I love the writings, and the musings that come. I love that they are coming, and that I feel connected to myself so deeply these days. Emotionally, and artistically. 

I hope that makes sense, and I hope all keep that in mind as you wander through my life here. 

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These days, I'm thinking a lot about the reset button. When you've lost everything, you have nothing to lose. I am redefining. Questioning what boundaries mean to me, in all aspects of my life, and consciously trying to set them where they haven't been, or where they need adjustments. I am looking deeply inward, asking myself what is comfortable to me. Where I can breathe easy, or not. Where I feel safe, and peaceful. What perimeters I can live with, or without. What I need in the space I exist in. What I look for in a partner, and in friends. What I need to continue to mother my child in the way I know is best for him, and for me. I am learning that the reset button is not the monster I thought it was. Not even a little bit. I continually feel myself expanding, attracting, ready to accept all my new adventures that are presenting themselves. I feel myself shedding the skin of my old life more each day. I just may not have much to write about soon...

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Two months later.

Two months to the day.

I'm in a new dimension. The spell was broken. You look completely different to me now. Each interaction these days dispels the beautiful myth I'd built around you more.Truth chiseled away the clouded lens I used to view you through. 

For six years I could not see. 

Two months ago I thought I'd die of a broken heart. The pieces would shatter, and I'd surely choke on one. That would be the end of me. I was drowning, sure you'd ended me. 

What a surprise, it didn't take as long as I'd anticipated to discover my heart was in fact, whole. Beating and toughened. 

Even bigger than before. 

I'm simply exhausted, you see. You did exhaust me, I'll give you that. Six years is a long time to try to get someone's love. Six years is a long time to lose, or be on the verge of losing, someone again, and again. Six years is a long time to love someone who has one foot in, and one foot out. 

I was more ready than I knew, to be done. I could resist no more. I let you out of my heart. With your release, I got my life back, my love for life back. My energy has returned. The energy I was giving to the ghost all this time.

The ghost had always made it clear how easy it would be to leave. How his limits were far more easily reached than mine would ever be. The ghost, whom I no longer love. I no longer love him, like those who came before me. I no longer love the ghost, who demonstrated so many times, the ability to cut off, shut out, leave. I couldn't see it before. The trail of the ghosting. What other outcome would there have ever been?

You weren't ready.

Ready to stay.

Ready to love.

Ready to be loved.

Once you were the end all be all, king of my world. 

There is no more pedestal. 

There is no more forcing my love.

Giving up the ghost turned me right side-up. 

I can't throw a stone without hitting a cute boy. They're everywhere. There wasn't just you. A lesson I'm finally excited to have learned. Now I've got my armor; knowledge. Now I can see. Next time, I won't be an "escape". I won't be your easy out. I won't be an item on a check-list. I won't rush. To be with, commit to, give myself, entire. Next time, I'll choose wisely. And choose, I will...eventually. 

For you see, there are things I haven't yet experienced that I now, one day, look forward to, from the one(s) who are ready. Ready to love, to be loved. Ready to accept. Their faults, my faults, and ready to stay, entire.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder w/expert Randi Fine.

Transcribed from a podcast I had to listen to three times. I couldn't believe my ears. When I learn, when things I experienced are explained, defined, given a name, I feel that maybe, just maybe in time I'll heal. With the help of my therapist, and my own research, I have to believe I will heal.


Beyond the Basics Health Academy  with guest Randi Fine


** Narcissistic Personality Disorder **


NPD is a mental illness. These people are not psychotic. They look, walk, talk, and act like us. That's how they rope people in and destroy their lives.

When you're dealing with a person with this disorder, you're not dealing with the true person, you're dealing with the false self that they've created. The false self is showing a different mask to the world that is not truly representative of who they are inside. Inside they are self-loading and envious and they hate life, they hate everything about themselves. And so everybody who has what they wish they had is enviable in their minds...

...that's what throws people. They think that the person has extraordinarily high self esteem, and really does have self love which they seem to have, but they really don't.

(The narcissist) their entire life is about admiration, attention, adoration from others and they have an empty well that is never satiated or filled. So they need it constantly.

Q: What kid of things do you see with individuals that have been in relationships of any kind with somebody with NPD?
A: Complete destruction of individuality, self-esteem, great depression, hopelessness, despair, every kind of negative thing you could imagine. They come out of these relationships not at all the same person they are as when they went in. The manipulative tactics that are used on the victims are so insidious that the victim doesn't realize what's being used on them. They use tactics called gas lighting and projection, brainwashing, and psychological warfare. They completely turn their victims mind around so the person no longer knows who they are, they do not trust their instincts, nor do they trust their ability to live independently.

Gaslighting. When a victim is gaslighted they're told what they see they didn't see, what they hear they didn't hear, what they were told they were not told. They'll be told the narcissist never said what they said. What they've experienced never happened.

Projection. They will tell the other person exactly what they know to be true of themselves. They'll say you are a user, you are a manipulator, you only want things for you, you don't care about anyone else. And they constantly project this onto the other person, which makes the other person crazy, because the victim generally is a very kind, over-understanding, super-understating individual who would give anything to have this narcissist be nice to them. So when this stuff is projected onto them it makes them feel crazy, because it is so not true. And then they begin to wonder after while, well, maybe I do want too much. When the only things that they're actually asking for are having their basic, very basic needs met, which the narcissist refuses to do.

In the romantic relationship, in the beginning, the narcissist does what's called love-bombing. And they are the absolute most perfect partner. They are everything that the other person has looked for in a human being to partner with. It's also called the honey moon phase. They get to know this person inside and out, the phish for all their weak areas, and all the things they want in life, and then they morph into this perfect partner. The victim has no idea what is happening to them because they are on such a love high. They can't even believe that they found this person. The minute the union is secured; they move in, they get married, as soon as the narcissist knows that they've got that person, at that very second, it all changes. So the victim keeps trying to get back that person. "I know he/she is in there, I saw it. We had that love, we had that perfect love. I'm gonna do whatever it takes to get it back." And so the more they try to get it back, the more abused they are and it keeps spiraling downward. And they still can't understand that the person they thought they were in love with was a total fake. That person never existed.

Q: Is it possible for a person with NPD to change?
No, unfortunately not. The narcissist never changes. The narcissist has no ability to be introspective. The narcissist doesn't care about anyone. The narcissist doesn't love anyone. It's all about gaining what's called narcissistic supply. They are this empty person inside who does not have any ability to be happy. They don't have any ability to love or empathize. They need so much and they need it constantly and as soon as you finish giving them what they need, they're empty again. What they do with their victims is they capture them, and they keep them hostage through emotional abuse, so that they have these victims to continue to feed off of. Once that person is no longer supplying them, that person means absolutely nothing. So you could have had a 35, 50 year old marriage with this person. The minute you stop feeding them, it's as if you never existed. It's very tragic. And it's very hard for those who have been victimized this way to comprehend that the love they thought they had never, ever existed.

Q: Is the plan to get out of the relationship?
Even though they feel like they've got to get out of there, they're terrified of leaving. They're terrified of being on their own. They still believe they're tremendously in love, and they still believe there's a chance that this could work. Because of what's been done to their brains, they don't have the ability to think this clearly. They may get away, but in their heart they're still addicted to this narcissist.

With the littlest thing the victim is back. In their heart, they just want that person to love them. Any inkling of something that resembles attention or love and they're right back.

When people who have been victimized this way figure out what's wrong, it's imparitive that they get help with it.

It's not commonly known in our society that emotional abuse can be worse than physical abuse. With this kind of abuse, the problem is that it's intangible. With physical abuse, you can see what happened to you and your brain has a chance to recognize it and accept it. With emotional abuse theres no way for the brain to wrap itself around this kind of thing because a non-personality disordered person doesn't think the way a narcissist thinks, but they think narcissist does think like they do, and they continually try to apply logic to an illogical situation and it makes them feel crazy. They can't figure it out.

***What NPD does to children***

It absolutely destroys children. They don't have children to love children, and to see them grow and become individuals, they have children to grow their own supply. That's all it is. They don't have the capacity to love children.

The parent use things like narcissistic rage, which if you see someone in a rage like this it's among the most terrifying faces you will ever see. They use these tactics so children are afraid to go up against their parents.

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Now.

This morning was different.

Out for a walk, I could hear it. I could feel the pulse. I was so away of the universe breathing. It was alive, I was a part of it, and I was in sync like I hadn't been in five years.

I am focusing on breathing today. I am aware. I am alive. I am breathing deeply and purposefully.

What if this is exactly where I am supposed to be? What if, after a false start, this is the beginning...of everything?


Eternal retour, eternal retour, eternal retour.


Inhale. Exhale. Begin.



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Struck today.

I've been anxiously awaiting the announcement of Lucky Blue & Stormi Bree's baby. When it popped up this morning, I did not expect to have the reaction I've had. Full body sobs. In waves, I am rocked hard. I swear I can feel my heart breaking in my chest. I can FEEL it. Overcome with a grief, a love, and a special kind of nostalgia that only a mother can know. Like death, you can never understand birth until you have experienced it. There is a beautiful and devastating permanence in both. In the midst of my breakup, I grieve. I grieve the potential of what could have been. I grieve the incredible experience of the birth of my son. I look at this photo, at this moment, and I know that moment. I am sad that moment for me was so fleeting. This moment is precipice. A new life lies ahead. I am sad for those who will soon find out how hard it could be, and who will be crushed by it. I am envious of those who will stay together, and be strengthened by it, and those who will get it again. I have so many wishes. I wish he would have had patience. I wish he would have seen me through. I wish he would have comforted me when I needed it, and been a source of emotional strength. I wish I could have explored with him deeply and openly conversations of how I experienced pregnancy, childbirth, post partum anxiety, parenting styles, my mother's instinct, second babies, timelines, hormones. Hormones, who only let me begin my return to myself after a year. I envy you with men who don't claim to understand, but those who give you time. Who give you room. Who let you breathe. Who let you talk about, until it is all out, who make you feel loved, not scolded, or hurried. I see this photo, and I remember the feeling of having it all. I was full, I was complete. It is a stark contrast to how I feel these days. A new sense of freedom, yes. But also a strange loneliness. Our son now 16 months. And I still feel that it is so very much at the beginning. And that this is all such a shame. We only got 6 months in our new house together, 2 of which he spent moved out anyway. How was this an honest attempt for us? What is wrong with admitting fault? Working hard? Therapy? Communication? I am still trying to process and reconcile so much of the last couple of years. I will forever be haunted that the last time my former love and I were under the same roof, I was called names, scared, trapped, and I will never forget the way his face would change as he yelled. "I wish I had never met you" he said. "I am mad at him", he said of the baby. I will be haunted forever that he didn't want to try. To work through his demons, our marriage, and fight for our commitment. I will forever be haunted by baby Rosemary, who was supposed to come next, and never will. My body feels hollow now. I don't understand why this happened, as I am in the throes of it. I don't understand how I started with so much love, and ended with so much fear. I am left wondering if I was just something on a checklist as he rushed his way through, a hurried imitation of a life he thought he was supposed to have. I am open, wounded, and sad. I'd waited so long. To find the one person I ever wanted any of this with. For the point in my life where taking a break from work in order to be with at home with a baby was welcome. Loss. So much loss. It's enough to drive a weaker soul mad. I can't stop looking at this photo. There is a bittersweet universe that opened up in me upon seeing it. Of all I had, have, and will never have. 

To those who have been here, how do you get through?

How??

Nowhere to go.

"Grief is just love with nowhere to go." 

I've stumbled upon the perfect quote, and I'm thinking of it throughout the day. I ping-pong between moments of rest, and being seized with sadness. For a minute I think I'm going to be okay, and then my heartbreak is debilitating. 

I can't help but feel this is a monstrous waste. A rash, hurried, angry waste. The depths of what this is are unbearable. I do not want this. I do not want this for me. I do not want this for him. I do not want this for our boy. 

My boy no longer lives under the same roof as his mother and father. 

He will never see us kiss. 
He will never bound into our bed, waking us up early on a Christmas morning. 
He will never sit between us on the couch, watching a Disney movie. 
He will not take another family vacation. 
He will not be given a sibling from the two of us. 
He will never hear us tell the other, "I love you." 
He will not remember how hard it got for the two of us, but also how much love was there. 

All time is happening at once. We are speaking our wedding vows, we are watching our son be born, we are divorcing. Divorcing. And what can I do? What was I to do when I was being taunted with the word, divorce, for over a year? What was I to do, but beg and plead and nearly lose my dignity in the process? Don't leave me. What could I do, if I alone was willing to walk through the fires, to the ends of the earth, to fix anything and everything that came our way? 

What if what came our way damaged me emotionally, mentally, and physically in the process? My appetite vanished, my anxiety mounted, and I questioned my self worth. My worth. To feel unworthy is a scary spot to be. 

But what if I still I wanted to fight for us? What happens when one won't stop fighting, and the other won't start? What's to be done when you're desperate to draw someone out of communication shut-down, and they aren't a willing participant? What do you do when you ask for help for him, for you, for your baby, and nobody answers your cries? 

What if, despite it all, you don't want it to end? 

To end without a fight is such a devastating shame. In these moments, where I can't catch my breath, I am sinking. My love with nowhere to go is suffocating. So abrupt. 

I longed to talk about the depths of motherhood. But depth became off limits. Wasn't this just a season of life? Weren't we just getting back to dates? Planning our first getaway early next year for just the two of us? We had just begun. Barely at three years of marriage. I couldn't even have three, and I would have given every single one I had left. I am forever altered by this. 

How could so much be taken from me? This is a low, low grief. 


And when I see him...how will I ever look at him and not see my husband? I will miss him forever. I will love him for always. I move forward off-kilter, housing something broken inside. 

It is gone. It is all gone. 

Maybe this was never mine to keep. This is not the first time my heart has been shattered by my Great Love. The one who left me behind once for eight months. From that I barely recovered. Here we go again. 

My Great Love who talked of our future up until the moment our lives exploded. My Great Love who tried to leave me so many times. It was inevitable. How many times must I be left, or told I'm going to be left, before I believe it, and act on it as well? How many more days can I stay, scared? Physically, mentally, and emotionally declining? Scared of an anger that my Great Love came with, and one that seems to be amplified by life with me. 

Yet my heart still screams: Stop this! Stop all of this! End it now! Fight for this! This is can't be how our story ends! Don't run away! Look ahead! This shattered life is not for us!

Grief is just love with nowhere to go. I've been broken, but my love stayed intact. 

Thank goodness for our son. Our beautiful, magical son. He is a bit of what was, of what I believe should still be, and all the reason in the world to press on. The brightest spot in my life. The boy who I'm said to love too much. To me, there will never be any such thing as too much. 

Thank god for my capacity to love, and my role as his mother. 

This tiny boy has saved my life. 

Who are you?

So inspired by what a friend asked today on her Facebook page. "WHO ARE YOU? Who are you behind your fb page, your business title, or any other mask you have out there. Deep down, behind closed doors, who are you?" I  wanted to pose the question, too.  When you answer, let it pour out of you quickly. Don't think too much, just let the answer come. Stream of consciousness.  Here's mine: 

I am the most sensitive person I know. I feel everything deeply. Too deeply, I think, at times. I recently learned I get caught up in past wounds more than I was conscious of. I think being a human is unnatural and I don't like it all that much at times. Yet I often exist in a state of opposites. I have felt more in the moment the last couple of years more than I ever have, and I am currently so in love with my life that I get terribly sad thinking I don't get to keep it. I have to die someday. I don't want to. I want to freeze time. I don't want my husband and I to age, or die. I find this heartbreaking. 

I came to this life an old soul, but the memories of whatever I was are getting farther away. As if I am growing younger. I believe in reincarnation only because of how strongly I feel that I've always been here and will be again. I can almost remember the in-between of each round.  I identify with warrior and wise sage archetypes. Joan of Arc. Sylvia Plath. Carl Sagan. I also find it small and strange that we all fit into the same archetypes again and again. I always want there to be more. There probably is, but I don't know enough to see it.  

I believe humankind sets incredibly silly rules about things like money and politics and priorities. I don't like the boundaries and labels we draw with the earth and with each other. I've never belonged to an organized religion, but understand people need to believe what they believe to get through life with comfort and hope. We are all entitled to that, and should never be told or tell another they are wrong for their path. I believe we all end up in the same place, so whatever road you take to get there is fine. 

I think it is impossible and nonsensical to judge another, therefore when you do it's all about you and your beliefs, perceptions. I can't wrap my head around people shunning other people because of who they love, what they wear, or skin color. I suppose it's because I know I'm not my body. I identify with my inside, my soul. I feel my soul is not so limited as the vessel that houses it this round. I don't know if it's male or female or human, or what it is.  But I know it's me.  I also think my shell and my jobs here betray who I am.  Funny, isn't it? I do believe it's meant to be this way, for the greater good of our evolution. 

I crave salt to the point where I swear it could be a medical issue.  Always have. I prefer to sit on the floor rather than on a piece of furniture and have to reassure new people again and again that yes, I really am fine to do so. I have gone longer without red meat and pork in my diet than I ever did with it, even though there was a time when steak, mashed potatoes, and corn was my favorite meal.

When people have conversations about decorating their homes and shopping for material possessions I want to cry with boredom. I'd rather you talk about what makes you sad, and alive, and scared, and where you think our soul is, and what you think it is, and what you know to be true without ever having experienced it. 

I often feel I don't belong here in this place and time because I know better, I see past the illusion. I often imagine there is a force, a presence, or creator sitting back watching all of us here on planet Earth get it so wrong.  I'm sure they shake their head at us.  But I feel it is also loving and patient, and knows all.  I truly believe one day mankind will be enlightened, yet I'm surprised at our slow progress.  But we are young. 

I feel at times a more masculine energy in myself than female. I think nurture and nature have a huge hand in shaping us. I am an aries and only child through and through. For a highly sensitive person who has been on the path to expand and enlighten herself for four years now, at times I am scared how stubborn and borderline narcissistic I am. I try to forgive myself and chalk it up to the fact that I do have to live this life.  I have to be temporarily human.

I tattoo bits and pieces on my shell that mean something and mark phases, memories, and decades. It's a collection of the people I once was. When I die, I like that someone who doesn't know me could look at my body and in seeing those tattoos, understand a bit of who I was. That makes me smile just thinking about it. 

I believe this round my lessons are to learn how to truly forgive other people, to accept, allow, embrace, be present, and have patience.  

I believe my dog and I have been together before. I know it when I look into his eyes.  I believe dreams are sometimes memories.  I have had the same recurring dream about him and it has nothing to do with anything we've ever experienced.  He is always about to drown in various bodies of water, he is sinking.  At the last minute I save him.  I believe it's because we've lived it.  Maybe he's been my son.  

The first time you experience a death of someone close to you is probably the most profound experience possible.  When I did three years ago, I believe now I suffered from the beginnings of cotard delusion . I could feel my soul trying to escape, I felt I could barley contain it.  I kept trying to transition. I felt I was flickering and wasn't here in this world. I kept worrying I'd died.  

I've known what it is like to want to die, and what it's like to want to live.  I have had a thing for awhile with wanting to be in the air, off the earth. But as I seek and find my truth in this life, I am far more okay with being rooted to earth. Love is my number one, above all else. It is our essence, after all. I probably love too much, nearing the point of worship. I am so full of it, it hurts sometimes.  

Social media is a blessing and a curse.  I secretly long to live off the grid. I've got a hippie soul. Being in nature away from technology feels most natural.  I believe we are all one. I am another you, you are another me. If we all understood this there would be no enemies, no war. 

I believe happiness is not a place you get to and sustain, but society wants us to think so. All emotions are fleeting. It's okay to exist as something other than happy, and more often than not.  Sometimes I think I feel most in my natural state when I've got a bit of melancholia or nostalgia.  

I wish I was a cosmologist. Science is spiritual. If I could dub my "religion" with the title "Scientific Spirituality", I would. When I remember how we are so much tinier than we can ever comprehend, I want to cry over the fact I'll never be out exploring the universe in this lifetime.  

I feel most like "me" when I forget "me", and experience something that reminds me I am part of something bigger. I believe the universe is kind, and will give you what you need at every single moment.  It might not be what you think you want, and you probably won't fit the puzzle pieces together until far down the road.  Every time you trust your instincts and jump, the universe provides.  Everything is a lesson. And all, all, all, is temporary.  

I don't know if I've ever truly met another of my kind, but take comfort knowing they are out there somewhere, feeling the same way I do.

So, who are you?

Thanks for reading,

Deena Marie 

Thumbs Up

This is the month.  On the 27th it will be the one year mark.  One year since Chuck left.  There's one story I've had and haven't been able to share.  I've wanted to, I just couldn't write it.  I wanted it documented and out in the word but could never find my own words to tell it.  So, I asked my mom.  It took her awhile to be able to do it, but over the weekend, she did.  Here is a very special story in her beautiful words.  May is definitely going to be about honoring our Chuck.

Thumbs Up

I want to share with you a small moment in my family’s life, that made a huge impact! Maybe I should say a moment between my daughter and my brother.  My handsome, humorous, brother Chuck, left us last May. So here we are at almost a year, still contending with shooting pains in our hearts.

What a unique guy my brother was, and I mean that in a most loving way.  Chuck was the prankster of the family, how he came up with some of the jokes he pulled on us is still a mystery.  We were his personal guinea pigs! This teasing also extended to his nieces and nephews.

I’ve told Deena she takes after her uncle Chuck that way.  The have the same humor, and they shared an invisible, mighty bond. 

Chuck was so proud of Deena, from the day she was born, until his last minutes on this earth.

As I ride that hideous roller coaster of sadness, certain memories linger.  One of my favorites happened while he was in the hospital for the last time.

Chuck was rushed by ambulance to the emergency on May 10^th, 2012.  He would be in the hospital for the next two weeks, all but one of those days in the ICU.  There the medical staff hovered over him and did their difficult jobs, and there were many.

Now my Chuck, this bigger than life guy, was on the brink of death.  He lay in his hospital bed, intubated and unconscious.  He was our sleeping giant.  This was a hard part for my family, we hugged and cried and dealt with our crumbling hearts. 

I existed in my stupor, wearing boots made of lead, seeing through gray lenses, and carrying an internal ball of fear.

That was how I functioned last May. 

Around the fourth or fifth day, the doctors decided it was time to wean him off his medications.  This would help determine how sick he really was.  This is the time the silent worry began, if he did wake up, would he be our same Chuck? Had he been oxygen deprived?

The nurses encouraged us to talk to Chuck and touch him during this time.  He began to turn his head toward the sounds of voices.  Or any loud noise.  He became restless, letting a leg hang off his bed.  But we needed more! Please Chuck, just open your eyes! Please give us a sign!

This process lasted maybe two days, it felt like years. 

Deena was on her way to the hospital when I suddenly had this feeling or premonition.  There was going to be a connection between Deena and Chuck! I JUST KNEW! Deena knew it too, she felt it as she walked down the hospital corridor. 

Deena walked into the room, stood at the foot of his bed, and said, “Hi Chuck”.  He raised his arm in the air and gave a big Thumbs Up! Oh my god! Did he just give us our sign?! He had reacted to her after all! I KNEW IT! That darn thumb caused so much emotion and elation at the same time!

Deena and Chuck were truly connected!

My mom burst out crying, which caused a slight domino effect.  But they were tears of joy!

Later mom would say it reminded her of a fairy tale, when the Prince awakens the Princess.  In our case, it was the niece, that woke her uncle!

I can only tell you, that in my minds eye, I relive this miracle moment, over and over. 

And so, to my daughter and big brother, I give you both, a Thumbs Up!

- Lauren Manzanares 

April, 2013