I guess this is something I've been struggling with my entire life. I don't know who I am.

I can be 'labeled' as a mother, a girlfriend, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a friend, a co-worker, a dispatcher and a cousin. But is that who I really am? All of these things only take up a very small part of me.

I can be called talkative, lazy, liar, smart, funny, confident, neurotic, forgetful, sexy, thoughtful and creative. However, these are things others see in me!

Who am I? Who do I believe I am? If I dig down far enough and really be truly honest with myself...

I am a woman who cherishes her family. I am someone who constantly misses my friends--even when they're only upstairs. I am deeply flawed and extremely emotional. I am deeply scarred but hardly wounded. I love poetry and the smell of brand new books. I love the sounds of words when read aloud. Each syllable, each word, each sentence and each paragraph.

I love to hear myself laugh--I don't do it near enough anymore.

I'm someone who talks more talk than she'll ever allow herself to walk. I constantly fight my inner demons and 90% of the time, they win. I'm impatient and ridiculous, but I expect you to wait for me when I'm running late. I'm always running late.

I'm half-way between irresponsible and completely independent. I get things done on my own damn time and I forget the world doesn't work that way. I'm passionate about the little things. The little people.

I don't cry when I'm sad. I have an irrational fear of crying when I'm sad. I cry when I'm angry because I don't know what else to do. I talk fast and loud when I'm excited. I have a lisp when I'm tired or drunk.

I'm the one who fills the void of silence. I can't stand silence. I sleep with the TV on, I clean with the music blaring. The only time I require silence is when I'm reading. When I'm reading I hear the sounds of the voices I've created for my characters. I hear the sounds of the bustling in the book. I let myself get completely enveloped by books, it's my escape.

I'm plain and simple--straight to the point. I've been referred to as glamorous and I've never quite understood that. I find the beauty in everyone and typically I'm jealous of it but only at first, because I tend to dwell on the negatives of everyone.

I'm happy nearly 100% of the time it's just hard to tell by the way I talk.

I cuss like a sailor and I am ashamed of it. I've been raised to believe it's not lady-like yet I refuse to quit.

I have to constantly remind myself to put forth an effort to learn about other people. It's not as though I'm not interested in what they have to say, I just get lost in my own conversation that I forget to ask people how they are and how they're doing.

I'm open-minded and sometimes judemental. I have a hard time walking in someone else's shoes without first being reminded. Empathy is certinaly not inherent in me.

My heart aches when I see an elderly man eating alone. I have felt a strange type of remorse for people on death row.

I constantly believe I'm not good enough. In anything I try to do, I first question myself. Am I good enough? Will I succeed? Will I fail? What will others think? How will I feel if I fail? But you'll never know it because I'm the master of putting on a brave face. I rarely try new things.

I pretend to know more about things than I actually do. When I can hardly tell you about myself!

I am Kassandra.

My insomnia is back, full force, completely knocking me out. It's awful and I hate it.

Yesterday I decided that even though I hadn't had alot of sleep this week, I needed to straighten up my house--and that I did. I laid down at 10 tossed and turned until 12 when Stefan called to tell me I had an errand to run (damnit) and I got ready for that. Turns out I didn't need to run that errand and by 1, I was already so annoyed at my lack of sleeping abilities I decided to go pick my dear Rileigh up from daycare--only she was napping.

I diddled around until 3 and picked her up. We went to Kid's Kingdom to run around. I suspected she wasn't feeling the best but she was having a blast and wasn't running a fever. I assume she is teething. These 1st year molars might kill us.

Needless to say I didn't get to bed until 6, Stefan probably wasn't too happy about not being able to see me (sorry baby!) and even then I tossed and turned the entire 4 hours. I woke up late, didn't get to shower and my night went downhill ever since.

I hate when I miss my shower.

I refuse to call someone in to cover for me so I can go home because it's supposed to be 62* today. SIXTY TWO. I refuse to be sick. I refuse to miss this fantastic opportunity to bring my daughter to the park. I refuse ,I refuse, I refuse! *Unless of course she's out of daycare today.. Then I might just die.*

The things we do for our kids.. MAN. I'm telling you though, if I was single--that park would be the ultimate place to pick up hot single fathers. They mingle there. It's AWESOME. So at least I know where to go for some good eye-candy.

I just wish Stefan could be one of the hot (not single) fathers that mingled there more often. His damn job is getting ridiculous. He works 11 hours a day 6 days a week and sometimes he goes in on Sunday's too. I loathe his job right now. But at least he's got one right? I have to remember to be thankful that he has a job, that I have a job and that we can raise our daughter.

I just miss him. I don't see him until well after 6 and I sometimes lay back down when Rileigh goes to bed at 8. He hardly ever comes with me to chill out. He's interested in the computer or watching his stupid sports crap.

Graveyards blow.

I've slipped into a bit of a depression. Which really just came out of nowhere and I've tried the whole denial route to no avail. So I've started seeing an LMHP which has worked wonders. I have noticed though that I'm happiest when I'm behind my camera. I thoroughly enjoy taking photos. Mostly of my daughter. But in general, anything will do. I just lack creativity. Not to turn my blog into Dooce or anything but I'm going to start posting pictures regularly.

And in light of my daughter's recent accomplishment... (She now says "Cheeto's"...
ACCOMPLISHMENT INDEED!) I'll be posting some "Cheeto's" pictures.

She certainly loves her Cheeto's. But I know you're all out there saying.. "Oh. My. God. That woman feeds her 16 month old daughter CHEETO'S?! Where is Child Protective Services when you need them? She may as well be force feeding her LARD that child will be obese! Take it away!"

And to those women.. I say... "SHUT IT." As I'm stuffing Cheeto's down your throat.

I’m sitting here thinking of all these things I want to do. No matter how big or small they are, I want to do them and I don’t. I don’t know so much if it’s that I don’t have the time to do it or that I’m too lazy or that the confidence level isn’t there… I just don’t do them. I don’t push myself towards them. I’m not motivated to do so. Here’s a few examples, things I’ve not been able to stop thinking about…

1) Take a dance class. (I have looked into this one)
2) Go back to school majoring in English or Literature or Speech (Something along those lines).
3) Learn Spanish
4) Take a photography class

There is a “Zumba” class at the local YMCA that is on Thursday nights, I learned about it several months ago and it’s just now become available to take. I’ve wanted to go for the last three weeks and I haven’t. I always make some excuse, the most popular of them being, “I can’t go alone, there is no way I’m going by myself.” So I asked, Wonder Woman Heather (that’s our daycare provider) whom I get along with swimmingly… She’s agreed to go next Thursday… I’m pretty damn excited. She’s going in hopes to lose weight in a relaxed and fun atmosphere and I am going in hopes to gain a small amount of rhythm and to have fun. It’s a combination of salsa dance and aerobics, so this should be interesting. I’m also wanting to do Pilates… I just haven’t asked Heather if she wants to join.

As far as the school thing, it’s a little far-fetched right now to do… But I’m not exactly helping my situation any. I have to get a grip on my spending habits if I ever want to achieve this goal.. Ugh. Spanish goes hand in hand with this as well.

I wouldn’t even know where to begin with a photography class. I e-mailed a photography who’s work I admire to see if she’d let me shadow her a few times to learn about camera basics. She never did e-mail me back, I didn’t take the rejection well, as I have not e-mailed anyone else about this. I’d love to learn to use my camera, but I have to do it hands on and the book they give you isn’t exactly English! I don’t know if there are classes at the local college for this either. Suppose I could do some checking into it…

It just seems like there are millions of things I want to do… I’m not doing any of them. I was always, very much, the extrovert. I threw myself out there, I had fun and I took risks. I faced challenges head on and conquered them. Has life just gotten the better of me? I want Rileigh so much to grow up like the girl I was. I was fearless. I wasn’t worried what people would think and I certainly wasn’t worried about getting embarrassed.

I feel like a stranger in my own body now. I’m indecisive about things I’ve never been indecisive about. I sleep constantly and I complain non-stop. I really do feel like I may be depressed. I’ve always been one to exaggerate. But with Dan accidentally shooting himself, I felt that maybe I was taking it too hard and refused to let myself. Same with this depression business. I feel like I’m making too much of it. I’m not feeling well though and that’s why I’m seeking therapy. We’ll see what goes on from there.

Perhaps we should touch upon a topic that is something I truly believe in and that is proper grammar.

I am very active in the Babycenter Community and many people know me there. It is my 4th home. You know after mine, my moms and my dads. Yeah I come from a broken home, damn. Which is better than actually having them together any day. Besides, I get more Christmas and birthday presents this way. (Oh yeah! I went there!)

I mentioned I'm pretty well known on Babycenter (BBC). It's not because I'm witty or smart, or beautiful and knowledgable. But because my signature (-I choose to ignore your post like you choose to ignore basic grammatical principles.) speaks volumes.

How aggravating is it to read "I love him so much. He's my ray of light. I wish we could be together forever." as "luv him so much he my ray o lit wish we cud b 2getha 4eva" Are you serious? I don't care. I most certainly can read that. But it puts a strain on my eyes. NEXT PLEASE.

Now granted, my grammar isn't 100%, but I've been out of school for 5 years. What do expect from a college dropout that lives in a broken home?

You go to take a drink of your coffee and the cup is EMPTY?

...Yeah, me too.

Kas

My coworker is watching The Tyra Show (not my favorite show by any means…) but she’s interviewing Beyonce (who looks like crap btw). They’re speaking about her new “Single Ladies” video (I can’t respect the song or the video) and Tyra says to her something along the lines of.. “I feel like when you’re pointing at your ring in the video your telling us that you’re happy and all us single ladies should go find our (she points at her ring finger) and find our man and be happy.”

Tyra, (shakes head in shame) you should know better that you don’t need a man (OR husband) to make you happy. It’s annoying that people out there still believe happiness comes with marriage and men.
Ugh. And my co-working is stuck on how Beyonce just doesn’t look like Beyonce AND (mortal sin in her world) she’s not wearing her wedding ring!

P.S. Beyonce, I believe you forgot to put on your undershirt for that suit. Also, I do not care what your breasts look like (no matter how nice), so next time you're on national television--cover the hell up!