to my college roommates.

freshman semester at goucher was hell.
i hated the first three girls i lived with in my suite so i moved into a suite two doors down.

in enters me - frustrated, second month of school, sweating, making a boy carry all of my things, trying not to step on anyone's toes (literally and figuratively) as i invade their' personal space and make it my own.

here they are - frustrated - annoyed that some new girl is moving in and having her boy toy carry everything for her and leaving her shit everyone and not respecting our space.

if you can imagine - it was not the most ideal situation. really, the only one benefiting from it was me. it was quite uncomfortable for the first few days.

however, in two weeks we were running around, sleeping in one another's beds, eating all of our meals together, going out on the weekends, and sharing clothes and make up.

radia - the beautiful, insanely smart, incredibly loud, moroccan princess
candace - the ethiopian goddess who smokes cigarettes, drinks whiskey, and sleeps.
andi - the super woman of sports, writing, decor, and hair, she can make anything beautiful
and me - just the girl from jersey with a lot to learn.

we were all the most unlikely friends - but they became my soul sisters and saved me more times than i can count - they made freshman year a year of joy and dancing. they are my positivity and strength.

in the world of dreams.

it seemed as though mandi was not a real person - more or less just a fragment of my imagination that i had dreamt up in order to deal with a horrible living situation senior year of high school.

although she existed in my younger years, and always disliked me; we had never really been friends even though we had attended the same schools since pre-k.

the day our worlds changed was in october of 2007.
i didn't ask permission. i didn't ask for help. i didn't even ask for boxes.
i moved into mandi's solo double room on 4th central and she had to live with it.

our dorm teacher had obviously explained to mandi what was going on, the situation i was in and kindly asked her if she wouldn't mind moving her things out of the second closet, desk, and drawers.

mandi replied, "ok, so she is moving in like at the end of the week, or?"
our dorm teacher: "no, like in the next ten minutes."

mandi opened the door and blocking the exit to her room was my couch, i waved. she cried.

that was the start of a beautiful friendship.

that first night mandi said "i go to bed every night at 11, i don't have twin sheets so we will just separate the beds tomorrow."

we never separated the beds.

two weeks later we were inseparable, staying up til three in the morning, having fashion shows, getting tcs and running around creating chaos in the dorm.

since losing a friendship in christina - i thought i would never feel close to someone again, and then i met mandi and she completely changed my mind.

we were married on south lawn underneath a "chupah" and we are jewish lesbian wives.
we wrote "mandi is the queen of queefs" and just the word "queef" several times on the bathroom wall and were sent to the deans office.
we sang karaoke at karaoke night for the mentally disabled, got booed.
we played ritual dress up with maude and john lennon, while listening to the medea soundtrack.
we got caught singing "i'll make a man out of you" from the mulan disney movie and were sentenced to detention.
we once ate an entire chocolate cake.
we stole statues from people's yards in new jersey after our walk to wawa, painted them, and gave them back.
we smoked on a trampoline - and during a 3 hour traffic jam while trying to get to the nearest taco bell which was only 8 miles away.
we took paul to see mamma mia after his father died.
we took out the recycling in high school in our dress up clothes - saw naked boys - and screamed - waking up everyone.
we hid the first time they tried to make us take out the recycling.

in a nutshell - we were insanely close in high school.
she is still one of my greatest friends.
i love her dearly - to mandi "champagne"

falling in love.

connections are not meant to be understood, or acceptable, or reasonable or even healthy.
but the first time you fall in love it hits you like a train and you see it coming and you can't even move.

love is never wrong and so it never dies.

when i first fell head over heels, over the moon, can't eat, can't sleep, can't wait to wake up, in love, i was 18 years old. D was a year younger than me.

he cannot be explained.
he was everything i ever wanted. he was my best friend. we were so similar. it was almost unbelievable.
we were both quaker, had sisters the same age, played lacrosse.

our parents got along, our sisters loved each other.

loving him was the first time i ever thought about someone before myself.
loving him was paradise.
we would kiss everywhere.
we would hate leaving each other.
we would sneak out of class for two seconds of seduction in the hallway.
we would break all rules and than we would laugh about it.
we would smoke cigarettes in my room.
we took pictures together, took our clothes off.
we went to maine and kayaked and made love.
we climbed mountains.

loving someone with everything you have is the most powerful, emotional, intense, and terrifying thing you can do. because they can hurt you the most.

i remember thinking he could never hurt me. we were so happy.
we were so perfect for each other.
he was my soul mate.
i remember people asking me what i saw in D, laughing at us because of how ridiculously happy we were.
i remember sticking up for him and for us and for our once in a lifetime love.

when i graduated my boarding school in 2008, i gave D my yearbook to sign first, because i wanted him to have enough space to write whatever he wanted. and he did. he filled up every single available space in the yearbook. no one else could write in it if they tried. and that is just how he was.

i remember once the school was holding a s'mores event for all the students one weekend - just to do something nice, as like a little treat. and D, knowing my life and obsession for chocolate, stole all the hersheys bars for me. he hid them in his sweatshirt.

for senior prom he kept begging me to go - to get tickets, and i kept saying no, telling him i had no desire to go, but i got them secretly and surprised him and asked him over dinner one night. he was the best dancer.

at my graduation meeting for worship i remember he stood up, talking about the class of 2008 and how he will miss his friends, etc, and finally saying how he met a wonderful girl, who changed his life. my mom and aunt cried.

the summer after i graduated when we vacationed in maine - it was foggy and rainy and yet it was the most perfect place i can ever remember being because i was with him. i remember getting off the train and seeing him and him hugging me and kissing me and telling me how tan i looked. i remember D teaching me how to eat lobster and how to canoe. i remember falling asleep in this little room with a fly net over the bed - every night it would take him hours to tell him goodnight.

a few days before i left for college in baltimore, D called me and ended things - saying he needed to focus on his senior year of school, and i should embrace college life. i was broken. i couldn't leave my bed. just thinking about his smile would make me cry.

in november i visited my boarding school for the first time since graduation.
the first person i saw was D.
he ran out of his house, wrapped his arms around me, told me i looked skinnier and helped me carry my bags up to the dorms. we kissed and it was still the most amazing feeling in the world.
i was lost without him and yet whenever we were together i lost myself in him, in his kisses, in his touch, in his laugh.

we tried to be together again, only to end once more on christmas.
i didn't speak to him for months until he called me one night in early march - saying he saw a picture of me, was thinking of me, told me about how he got into college, again professing his love.

after that he came to baltimore to visit me, met all my college friends. it was the best three days i had had since maine that summer. i didn't go to class at all. we just stayed in the room, talking, laughing, kissing, crying, making love. we left the room to eat occasionally. when he left baltimore, i remember dropping him off at the train station, trying to avoid our eventual goodbye. when he finally walked onto his train and i got into my cab, the cab driver looked at me, all teary eyed and heartbroken, and he asked "are you going to marry him?" i laughed and said, "god i hope so."

we eventually broke up in late april. we just couldn't figure out how to make it work.
and yet i saw him that august, the morning he left for college, he made love in the woods at our boarding school. he was leaving me, leaving the chapter of our life that we had created so sacredly and that i had tried so desperately to conserve.

i visited his college in november but things were not the same. although we still kissed and talked and laughed and cried and knew we loved each other, things had changed. we had both changed.
and we were both finally happy without one another.

although D and i didn't work out, he taught me how to give, how to love, and how i should feel when i'm with someone. he taught me that love and passion coexist and that happiness is heaven. even in the absolute worst situations i was so happy because i was with him.

i know he was my soul mate. and because of that i believe that there are multiple soulmates for everyone. some for a moment, some for a year, some for a lifetime.

cheating friends.

summer before sophomore year of high school - i started dating J.

he was older, taller, and richer than R. i thought i had hit the jack pot, especially since my parents almost sorta kinda approved of him since we had known one another for years.

he was very funny, always kept a smile on my face, introduced me into the world of seniors, with the drinking and partying and drivers licenses. it didn't hurt that he was hopelessly romantic.

when we first started dating summer of 2005, i was working at this little coffee bistro cafe; mostly just washing dishes and organizing. countless times he would show up spontaneously at my work to take me home in his jeep 4runner, occasionally with flowers and chocolates. even the older women who worked with me were jealous of his lavish gifts and affections.

our dates would consist of going to the movies, mini golfing, going out to dinner or a friend's house. yet, he always made me feel like the most important person in the room, no matter where we were.

even when i went back to my boarding school in the fall and he stayed in new jersey at one of the local catholic schools, he would still do extravagant things to express his love for me.

- there was the time he drove all the way to my school just to drop me off a burger because i was missing fast food and he only had had a half day of classes
-the time he brought flowers for me and my dorm teacher just because...
-or one day when we were fighting he showed up in the snow outside of my window with these huge posters written about his undying love for me

he was almost unreal.

our first christmas together was magical. he surprised me, took me to new york city for the day; we went to see Wicked! on broadway (even though he hated every minute of it), we took a carriage ride around central park and ended the evening with dinner at a beautiful italian restaurant. the next morning i woke up to mcdonalds pancakes, because he didn't know how to make them. it was just about the sweetest, most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for me.

i was 15 when i started dating J, about the same age my parents were when they got together.
i thought that it was fate - that we were made for one another.

and then a year later, i found pictures of him and another girl in his car, messages from her in his phone. and i forgave him.

he went to college. i started my junior year of high school. but i couldn't trust him not to hurt me, and for good reason.

he ended up meeting a girl from my high school, who was visiting his college. around easter he told me we should go on a break - and i found out he had already been seeing her. the two of them pranced around my school's campus so in love, and it hurt so badly.

i was so angry, so hurt, and so humiliated. until i realized that no gifts or proclamations of love could ever make what he did to me better. no flowers or rings or trips to new york - nothing could make me forget about the tears that i cried or the embarrassment i felt.

for years, i could not speak to him because i was so mad. however, god tells you to forgive others who trespass against you.

J and i are now friends. we hang out from time to time, he still makes me laugh.
and although i have forgiven him for hurting me, i can never forget.

christina and true friendship.

 christina was the most beautiful person i had ever met.

she was creative, talented, special, funny, and just such her own person - it is hard to describe her to people. she was consuming and made me feel so alive.

we were just the two best friends that no one ever understood, but we could have cared less. we had more inside jokes then anyone i've ever met. i have never laughed as hard as i did when we were friends. i also never skipped class ever until i met her. we used to "mosh" together while listening to one ipod and climb trees and paint and put on silly disney or taking back sunday dance performances in my room. she was the killer to my whale, the twig to my log. we were just a match.

sophomore year christina wrote in my yearbook "im amazed at how you are my bestfriend in the entire world. every memory that we have i could never trade for the world because you make me who i am. i cant tell you how much you mean to me because i am just a lost cause without you in my world. i dont even understand how we came to be the two people that we are but without you holding me in the swing, people like wilber and fucking jake would be the death of me. i hope you know how beautiful you are and how you mean the entire world in my life.  you have been there for me more than anyone else in the whole world and you really let this lamb fly. your my dove. everything you know about me makes me christina and nobody else embraces my ways the way you can. i think that we are crazy but it makes my life. i could never even begin to tell you the impact that you have had on my life and i want to be old with you. and i will be. oh yes! "we'll just bring an axe- you got one?" do not touch this page it is for momentary madness and inspirational crazed moments. oh i will continue. but she never did finish writing in my yearbook.

although, she was my bestfriend; she was not all good. she never talked about her home life and more or less tried to escape it. she would go days, weeks without returning my phone calls or telling me where she was. she hardly did her work in school and there were days when she would just not show up to class at all. eventually christina got kicked out of our boarding school and after that, i really never heard from her again. i tried calling, stopping by her house, left countless messages. it was like she escaped from one life and into someone else's. she was like an angel. a friend that appears when you need it the most and helps remind you that you are important. she will always have a place in my heart because she took it with her when she left.

boarding school, freshman year.

my older sister went to boarding school four years before i did.

after attending a small quaker elementary school for the first ten years of my education, my parents saw fit to continue my quaker education into high school.

and there were only a few choices - although my school was my second choice at first, i eventually found my place there.

when i first started high school i was dating R and being away from him and my friends make home felt like a prison sentence.

like most girls in high school, i experienced the occasional bullying, taunting, and teasing, etc.

i was accused of being a racist, made fun of for liking a senior boy, picked on for my punk rock fashion and music interests, and had girls in the dorm completely ignore me. 

i did not let it break me. god says once you love your enemies, you have won the battle. although i would not say i loved any of the girls that picked on me, i definitely forgave them and moved past it.

the first year of boarding school was rough. although i pushed myself hard in school, sports, and the arts, i always felt like i didn't fit in; i felt lonely, unsure and lost.

i played soccer, i was on the varsity swim team, and in the spring semester i was in the musical. i was very involved in school and yet felt like i was missing something.

i think i expected my greatest friendships to form immediately, so when that didn't happen, i continued to be disappointed.

luckily, at the end of freshman year, i met christina - my best friend, one of my true soul sisters, and someone who completely accepted me for being me. when i met her, we had each other, and i was no longer lost and i started to love high school.

puppy love.

the first boy that i loved was intoxicating. 

R. was strong, rebellious, and terribly romantic. he was every young girls fathers' worst nightmare. 

life with him in it was a dream. the reality surrounding us did not exist and we were crazy for each other. 

although we went to the same school in new jersey, the teachers forbid us to spend time with one another. and on the weekends when we were not allowed to be together - it was almost unbearable. 

a day without him felt like eternity. 

however, we were children really - 14 maybe 15 years old and did not understand most of the feelings we had or the reactions we gave to them. 

i remember one day i discovered R talking to another girl, calling her his girlfriend, playing hoobastank "the reason" for her, which had been our song. i was heartbroken, emotionally destroyed. i disconnected all the phones in my house, turned off my cell phone and cried. i remember it was near thanksgiving time and my family and i were baking seasonal cookies for upcoming parties but it was raining out. the fall in new jersey is beautiful - with the trees changing color and the air becoming more crispy. i remember R rode his bike over to my house (which was four towns over) in the pouring rain because he couldn't bare the thought of losing me. outside, in my backyard, in the rain, we both cried, and laughed, and i forgave him because i knew no rationality or logic; all i knew was my love for him. 

needless to say, R and i are no longer together. our relationship only lasted that one brief year in the life. but it was powerful, eye opening, and moving and despite all odds, he changed my life. 

the birth of coco.

my parents were both born and raised in the great state of new york, while they fortunately fell in love in high school, married and had three daughters.

i am their' middle child.

it is important to begin my collection of memoirs with an idea of what the two people responsible for me are like and who they are so that the audience better understands my stories.

my mother is incredibly talented, beautiful and funny. an artist, a chef, and a friend - very passionate, powerful and exact.

my father is a deep, smart, compassionate man with the most patience of anyone that i have ever met, especially for dealing with all four of us women in the house.

my father loved my mother since the first day he saw her, chased her like all great men chase the loves of their' lives, and finally the two of the them were married in 1980, 31 magical years ago.

i suppose the reason i first believed in love was because of my parents. because of how they still look at one another and long to spend more and more time together. because of how they complete each other on a routine basis and still surprise one another.

most of my stories are about my trials with finding love, saving it, losing it, cherishing it - all things that my parents seem to have mastered.