I Try

"I Try"

Dear readers, 
​Games, changes and fears. Fate has brought us here to the end of spring. The heat starts to creep up on us and the days feel a little more never ending. The end of spring brings the start of the end for some. It becomes a time in your life where you can re evaluate everything and head towards the end of summer and a new beginning in the fall. In some cases, it is the start of the end of an era. It is graduation season. Some people see that as an ending, some people see that as the beginning of the end, and if you are Princess Mia in the Princess Diaries 2, it can be the start of a new story. My sister Courtney just graduated from College. Class 0f 2019 at SFSU. Yes, she still attended classes WHILE we were out living, drinking tea... and then spilling the tea. Watching as her year started to wind down in the timeline of her life, it occurred to me that we are both headed towards major crossroads in our lives. Now I didn't just graduate, but I have been building up major changes since the dark glasses came off in March. While i'm on that path towards an ending and a new beginning, Courtney will get a fresh start. No school, new place to live, new job, new people in her life and now an even more badass independent woman. She gets to now explore her twenties for the first time out of college. I don't know what that is like, but I am sure I will get to see it unfold through her stories. Readjusting can be difficult. I know it hasn't been the best for her over these last few weeks... but watching her get to that point where she walked across the stage to get that diploma that she worked her ass off for, well that is proof that no matter what we face, we can still get the rewards that we earned in life. People can try and take that away from us, but we have the power to keep on going and try harder and harder to do better, to be the best that we can be. As we all know, I still say try, even though I do my best to not have that apart of my vocabulary. The word "do" is a better word to say instead of try. I had a whole fucking entry about that before I surrendered last year. Do do do. But in some cases we have to say try. Because by trying, we are doing. And we are doing our best to make it through all the damn days. At one point seeing my sister not rested and thinking about things she shouldn't have to think about, god, that reminds me of me and all the stress i'm hiding underneath as i'm doing my best to keep a hold of the steering wheel. I do not want to get off track. I'm not, but sometimes it feels like you are. I mean, I did when I hit that car in 2014... then they took away my driving privileges... okay, that was off topic, but still, you get what I mean. My sister has done an exceptional job at holding on tight to the wheel to make it to her destination on that Castro theater stage for her graduation. Now she can rest up for a week and start anew next week as summer finally begins. I'm so proud of her and so glad I got to ride shotgun as she drove the car all the way to the cap and gown stage. I know the roads were rough, especially the last few weeks.... but now the summer sun is coming out... the rain is becoming a thing of the past... and the summer heat is coming out to play. As for me, my changes will come in the summer. I'm trying to drive my car to it's destination... let's hope I make it over the next few weeks. For now, i'm gonna take a break from mentally driving my car and ride shotgun as I look in awe to my sister as she takes the first steps of her brand new story. Usually, this would make a perfect ending, but I wanted to do something different. For the first time a chapter won't start in the summer, this chapter will go on to the next page. This has been one long person prologue. Spring was beautiful, to say the least. Regardless of the feelings that crept up on us and tried to get us off track, it was beautiful. I took the dark glasses off, showed the world my eye, saw New York, I got a feel of that life, I watched Avengers Endgame as it fulfilled childhood wishes, I turned 24 and created a bucket list of 24 things to before i'm 25, I went to Virginia and got hit on the side of the head with the harshness of what is still America's reality, I saw my god brother get married and got to be a groomsmen, I watched Aladdin and saw my dreams of a whole new world get revived and now I end spring with seeing my sister Courtney achieve one of the greatest accomplishments of her life. With all that said and done now we gotta see what summer has in store for us. Time to keep trying so we can do our best to be our best. Farewell spring, it's been real.

​Love, Dom 

Photographer: Courtney Johnson ​​​ & Dom Baza

What I'm Wearing: Shirt - Alfani, Jeans - H&M, Shoes - Calvin Klein


PRESS PLAY
Every post I will include the song that inspired me to build a post around it's title

Page 135
​Stories From My Life - CHAPTER 15