This is the end...

...of an era. This marks the end of my carefree summer and indicates the transition in my life from high school to college. I'm terrified because I don't know what my future holds for me. I couldn't tell you how anything will work out and I'm scared to find out. At the same time it's frighteningly wonderful, because I've begun to discover that some of the most beautiful moments in life are the unpredicted ones. I learned this summer that the difference between being upset and being happy is entirely perspective. It seems obvious that how I chose to view my life makes a huge impact on how I feel about it, but the application of this is incredible. The lesson is that there is always a bright light waiting for you anywhere you go. The destination is almost irrelevant in light of what you choose to make of it. My predicted path was not very accurate at all, as many of the ideas I had of who I should be were not fulfilled. Some of this was within my realm of control and some of it was definitely not. Regardless, I can sit here and say today I've become even more of the person I'm meant to be despite the disappointment a and let downs. So many of the tumultuous struggles ended up resolving themselves and led me to feel I'm embarking on a journey that's leading me to all the bigger goals in my life. I've said it before, but not getting what you want makes you just as happy as getting something you want does. It's all based off of how you take the current situation and run with it. Holding a grudge for people who accomplished your dreams is absurd, because that no longer matters. If you don't achieve your old dreams, that just means you outgrew them and need to make some new ones. We can never be more than we are. The end of high school showed me its okay if I'm not the smartest or the prettiest or the most athletic. I'm going to keep struggling with those issues in my life forever, but the more time goes on the more I can roll my eyes at my silliness. I'm a legal adult now and intend to begin attempting to act in a way that suggests I am what I want to be. I'm going to be a powerful woman and no one is going to stop me. Now to lift my invisible champagne glass and toast the past. Thank you to all the people who crossed my path and taught me humbling lessons about love, loss, and adolescent stupidity. To everyone who I have loved, I will hold them in my heart forever. And here's to this new chapter of my life on the hilltop in the Big D. Many beautiful flowers blossom from unexpected places.

Preach It

“Some people say, “Never let them see you cry.” I say, if you’re so mad you could just cry, then cry. It terrifies everyone.” 

― Tina Fey, Bossypants

"You should know I disagree with a lot of traditional advice. For instance, they say the best revenge is living well. I say it's acid in the face- who will love them now?" 
― Mindy Kaling, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

"Everyone knows that you should never wreck your life for a boy, and especially not one that you meet while you're in high school. Seriously, everyone knows it. You never hear someone say, "Oh, wow, you're seventeen and you really like him? That's great, you should do whatever it takes to get him, even if it means wrecking your whole life. 
 —Lauren Barnholdt

“People aren't either wicked or noble. They're like chef's salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.” 

― Lemony Snicket

Summer Country Song Inspiration

For my nostalgic reflecting, no one says it quite like Kenny does.

Looking back at the moments black and white, I wouldn't change a thing that changed my life. For the worse- for the better, man I was gone, gone forever. The laughs, the smiles, the trials, the tears, it's hard to hate what got me here.

After graduation and drinking goodbye to friends. I go back to watching summer fade to fall, growing up to fast and I do recall, wishing time would stop right in its tracks.

Looking back now really makes me laugh, we were growing our hair and we were cutting class. Knew already there was nothing to learn, we were striking matches just to watch them burn. Listen to our music just a little too loud. We were hanging in there with the outcast crowd. I don't know where the time goes, but it sure goes fast. Just like that we were wanna be rebels who didn't have a clue. 

 

Life Truths

1. Home is where the wifi is.
2. I always win.
3. It's always tea time.
4. Sometimes it happens.
5. Men hate women who weep.
6. Happy. Free. Confused. Lonely. At the same time.
7. Nothing lasts forever.
8. We are all Amanda Bynes.
9. Sometimes you're better off not knowing.
10. The truth sets us free.
11. There's a difference between a great love and the right love.
12. Have a little faith, and when that doesn't work, a whole lot of mimosas.
13. It's always your favorite sins that do you in.
14. You and tequila make me crazy.
15. You never know when you are seeing someone for the last time.
16.You can never love someone as much as you can miss them.
17. We only run from the things that truly scare us.
18. People change and forget to tell each other.
19. Brown doesn't offer a degree in slut.
20. There are far better things ahead than those we leave behind.

Never look for a boy's car or do something like stalk his house it's embarrassing and you'll probably have to go to therapy or journal about it like me to move past the shame

I do not know why I still look for that car. I haven’t been in that car in years, nor have I talked to the owner in months. I wouldn’t even say that I miss him anymore. I don’t stalk his whereabouts on social media, or look for him at parties, nor do I wake up from dreams where he plays my counterpart. He’s not in my life anymore, and finally it feels like this was by my choice, not by force. I don’t have to look for the white Acura anymore because I’m no longer the girl who keeps an eye out for a boy’s car all over town, wondering where he is going and what he will be doing. I suppose it was never so much about the car, although that much was always apparent. I feel it represented what I wanted him to be and what he never was.

            I cannot recall when the car stalking commenced. I would guess it began the summer before senior year when we broke up. I never knew where he was, or what he was doing, and I always wanted to know. The whole summer I just wished so desperately that when I arrived somewhere he would be there too, and that he would be sitting there and get to see me feeling content with my life without him in it. I never saw him though, and I should have realized the fact I was looking suggested I wasn’t as content as I told myself I was.

            I have empathy for every girl out there who has lost someone who they have loved. No one ever wants to hear the unpopular opinion that at some point you will move on and stop caring, but the truth is simply that you do. It takes a very long time for certain girls to move on, but eventually you just hit that place where you find yourself on the top of a mountain and you look out and you ask yourself what you are doing spending your days wishing for a boy who isn’t even there to share it with you. (The mountain part is probably region dependent.)

            For me the toughest part of letting go was my mental scenarios. I always could predict our bright future every turn of the way, envisioning summer nights spent cozied in a hot tub, and sushi date nights. The scenarios developed as our relationship progressed, and as time went on and I began to realize they would only ever be that- mental fantasies. I began to struggle with denial that the teen fiction novel vision in my mind was merely a figment of a powerful imagination. My acceptance of this was incredibly meaningful. I came to the realization that just because I would never live out my invented sequence of events didn’t mean I wouldn’t experience ones in reality that were just as thrilling. I couldn’t predict what was going to happen to me, but that didn’t necessarily mean I wasn’t going to have perfect moments with the car owner in my future. Sequentially, we did share many memorable interactions in our future, and the majority of which were even better than my fictitious versions.

            I always wondered who I would experience all those first times with, and much of those mysteries have been resolved. Now I feel settled and I only reflect on the past with disconnect that I would have never believed possible a year ago today.

           Now that I stopped looking for the car I see it everywhere. It’s at the grocery store late at night, and it’s at the red light at the corner of my block. He’s everywhere now, but not in a frustrating way. It’s almost a comforting way, like the words he told me. He keeps his eye on me.

           In the meantime, I no longer feel as though I am near death when I drive, so that's a significant step towards sanity. Word for the wise- get drunk off margaritas... not love. ;)

Get Fit July- Eat Clean

Lunch can still be yummy even without the chips and sandwiches. I like to try and eat the most fruit at lunch because I feel like it is comprable to eating goldfish or another side dish. My favorite is a bunch of grapes and strawberries. The wrap has egg whites and ham in it, with just a very light sprinkling of cheese. I melted all of this on the stove so that it all melted together perfectly. To spice up water consumption, I squeezed some strawberry juice into my glass to give it the pretty pink hue and add fruity flavor.

Dinner time is not my favorite meal, but this is simple and delicious. I try to eat vegetables with my dinner, and tonight I picked corn on the cob (which I ended up cutting in half), and carrot sticks. I also ended up eating some apple slices as well. My main protein of the night is a low calorie salmon patty with a very small dollop of ketchup for seasoning. Don't forget to drink another glass of water!

A Rant on Tardy Behavior

Yesterday I got called out for arriving to pick someone up on time. On time. I said I would be there around 6:30, and I hadn’t been to the person’s house in a long while, so naturally because I was ready beforehand and wasn’t doing anything, I left a little bit early to ensure I wouldn’t get there super late. I know some people aren’t like that, and getting places late is of no consequence to them, but for me, it has always been one thing that greatly irked me. So said person made me wait in my car, feeling shameful for close to ten minutes while they did whatever it was they needed to in preparation for my arrival. It just set the night off on a bad note, and while we quickly laughed about it and moved on, it still offended me that I was called out for being on time. When did it become the standard to arrive everywhere at least fifteen minutes behind schedule? I know that in my life I accept this of other people, but I do not customarily do it myself. I don’t like the way it feels to be late places, and as a general principle, anyone who gets somewhere early leads a calmer and more collected life. There is no drama or fear, and no stress involved with hoping you won’t awkwardly walk into an event so late it isn’t even funny, or anything like that.

One other example that comes to mind is this time before I could drive when I asked my friend’s mom if she could take us to this meeting. Well I would cut them some slack for the dilemmas of the day, but they are late everywhere, so I don’t really think that this one time was any different than always. So the people took forever for us to leave, and I knew the place of the meeting was at least thirty minutes away, so when we left to get to the place we were going with fifteen, I knew it wasn’t going to be good. We ended up arriving at the meeting one hour late. I was so embarrassed that I didn’t even want to go in at that point, and I convinced my friend that we shouldn’t. I had never in my life missed more than half of a meeting before. It wasn’t so much that we didn’t go, but the fact I had put on nice clothes, and done my hair, and blocked out half of my day to go to this meeting, and then thanks to something not related to me, I was incredibly late. It’s just one of those instances in life that is so frustrating. 

What I Thought in the Past..

It always seems like we never remember anything more than what is right in front of us. Is it really human nature to forget, for the very essence of who we are to dissolve and dissapate from our thoughts with nothing more than the alleving powers of time? Days pass whether we count them or not, and even on the mornings where it seems questionable whether your world will continue to roll on, the sun has never failed to rise over the mountains in the east and fade again that evening over the palm trees in the west. Each day itself holds the potentail to be more than one more Monday in the earthly span of worst days of the week.

Some mornings I lie tangled in silky sheets, worry blanketing over my eyes, clawing in the dark to figure out why I should rise from my cozy cocoon of safety. Then I see it. I see it all. I see a maroon gown that swallows me up, and loosely curled hair, and antsy smiles with glossed lips nervously fidgeting with my painted fingers while waiting to hear my name. I see that moment when I rip off the matching maroon cap ladeled with honor tassles, and toss it into the May moonbeam lit night air in the unified symbol of the end, that all of the nothing was never really nothing at all. I see that day in December when I walk to the mailbox, shivering in a sweater and clutching the mail key anxiously in one hand. The moment when I twist the door to the mailbox and I see a innocuous yellow envelope, and how I will sink to the ground with triumphant tears of joy for the toil of four years of sadness. I see a future with autumn leaves, and vivid reds and yellows that remind us that losing everything can be the most beautiful part of all. I see a young lady who still goes by Miss but won't for long, squeezing hands tightly with a young man who's love dismisses all her fears.

 We hold on so tightly to whatever it is that makes us feel safe that we lose the value of the unforeseeable. High school will be over soon. No more will the same ecletic group of individuals parade the halls, no longer will the best friends laugh in the corner or the enemies bicker behind gray desks of academia. There will be no more early release pazooki eating or laughable group projects, no more Homecomings with ill fitting bodices and painful heels. There won't even be going home to a house filled with comforting yellow light and a hot plate of food served next to the side of parental love and guidance. That all will come to an end soon enough, and that's something we all have to accept. Look around and notice that the people you see do not match their image in your memory. We all change, in all the right and wrong ways. Maybe the haircuts and T-shirt choices have improved, and the teeth are all less crooked but the minds will never be the same shade of pure innocent white, unscarred by the bitterness and acidity of youth. The big issues always seemed less important than the small ones, then one day it flips beneath you and getting invited to parties and being accepted and owning the right brand of shoes gets replaced with decisions that impact the rest of your life. Maybe it makes us mad that metamorphasis transpired all around us and we never noticed until it was too late. Maybe the people and way you get used to isn't always going to be that way, but all the best parts of life are fleeting. The truth is we have to forgive each other for growing up. It's just like the leaves of fall, let them drop down around us, each leaf like a memory, whether it be success or failure. The best moment is right before we lose it all.

Breakup Babble

Nothing goes as planned, and people say goodbye in their own special way. Breaking up is hard to do, and not because we know the consequences of what awaits us on the other side of loneliness are unwanted and unpleasant. A break up symbolizes a change in the weather, a paradigm shift, an ever noticeable transformation that we all try so hard to run away from. What can really be done about it though, when on a Saturday night you sit at your house alone and think about the possibility of the end and what would become of you? Even the strongest of us have to admit defeat sometimes, that in many instances fighting is weaker than giving in and admitting there is no solution. It can be more noble to acknowledge that there is not going to be a solution to the problem. It isn't that other people will respect you more, but you might find that you yourself will have more respect for yourself as you walk away from the break up. The end is haunting and chilling and leaves all of us with the distinctive impression that life is a dark hole and that we will never see a sunny sky again. Experience will always be the only way to know that this isn't entirely true. One thing I learned this month that I think everyone should know is that not getting what you want makes you just as happy as getting what you want does.  Maybe it's a philosophical issue to be debated whether there is truth to this statement or if it is one giant falsity, but scientific proof is undeniable. As humans, when we do not get the desired result, we learn to teach ourselves to value our other options. It might seem contrite or forced, but it really does work. A breakup might truly break your heart, but some good will come of it. You will find friends you lost, other people who you forget, you will forge new relationships that are built on stronger foundations, and you grow into a new mold of yourself. When you have nothing left, you grow as a person into a much more powerful entity. None of us like to admit defeat, but there comes a time when it's time to get out and find yourself alone. How will you know if you can stand alone if you never try?

If Only I Had Known....

The Wink of Opaque Delusion

What would I have done the day I took this picture if I had known that the events of this day would follow me? I look so confident, so composed, so laid back in this picture, because I did not know that I was in the span of five hours going to make a huge fool of myself. Words to live by people: Think before you speak. Delusional ideology can really cause some embarrassing situations if we aren't careful in our lives. Some of the most meaningful song lyrics I have ever heard perfectly explain this. This song is Long Gone And Moved on by The Script.

When's the day you start again, and when the hell does you get over it begin? I'm looking hard in the mirror, but I don't fit my skin. It's too much to take, to hard to break my from the cell I'm in. It's time to get real, cuz I still don't know how to act, don't know what to say, still wear the scars like it was yesterday. But you're long gone, and moved on, I still wear the scars like it was yesteday, still talk about it like it was yesterday.

When's the Day You Start Again?

I always aspired to be one of those mystery girls. The ones you see in the school hallways and as they pass by you that little annoying internal voice of yourself goes, Damn, there struts a girl who doesn’t cry into her bowl of Fruit Loops in the morning.  I am a hot mess by nature, as I have no patience and a tendency to lose it at the slightest disarray.  I have long draping hair that will absolutely never blow out the direction I want it to go, and these two little sticks of side bangs that cling flat to my forehead when I don’t fix my hair properly. To top it all off, my skin is composed of over active sweat glands, my face gets lobster colored when I get flustered, and whenever I try to speak up in class I get this hoarse man voice that often cracks like a prepubescent teenage boy. In summation, I live my life in a perpetual state of calamity.

            I used to really love myself too much. Narcissism was my downfall; I was prideful to the point of looking in the trophy cabinet at school and casually shaking out my curls and knowing that I thought I was perfect. I see pictures of myself from that time, and I was so fearless. No abash for the opinions of others, no concern over what I was or was not doing with my weekends. I felt pretty and because of that I was. I dared other people to doubt who I was and stared them down when they did. I enjoyed the control I realized I could empower over those around me, and I began to realize the potential that simmered through my bones. I knew I was flawed, but I didn’t notice and I just pretended no one else did either.

            Then slowly there was a gradual but noticeable shift, as I began to age and started to truly open my eyes to those around me. With enough time there will be fall out, and there certainly was for me. All of my so-called glorious perfection began to dissolve around me, dissipating into the air and taking with it all of my spunky confidence and joy. It was a sluggish leak, but once the knob was twisted I would never feel the same way about myself again. There was once a light in my eyes, a glossy shine exuded into the atmosphere, but with each tear down and disappointment, the light dimmed.

            I grew up in Louisiana, and spent my summers frolicking up and down the white coasts of the Florida beaches. I had never seen a mountain until I was around the age of seven. I asked my dad as we drove up to Tennessee what a mountain looked like, as I mistook the rolling hills of Georgia for true summits. My dad had laughed and smiled at me. These aren’t the real mountains. The further we drove the more substantial the peaks became, until I truly understood what he meant.  His words launched back into my life as the infinitesimal dilemmas of my teenage life began to evolve. Each new hurdle was a little bit steeper, the rocks fell upon me a little bit more painfully, and the slow leak morphed into a consistent seeping. At first it was just school related, learning to manage high school classes and accept my educational imperfections. Then it was about my friends and feeling lonely, and I’d lose my footing as I climbed the slope, having to regroup on a new ledge. Then I learned what it truly means to lose, and I began to accept a torrential downpour of boulders upon my head. I even learned to open the umbrella to this and shield myself from the bitter stabs. At some point I finally will reach the pinnacle, but I ask myself at what cost? I will reach the top as everyone eventually does, but what will I have lost and suffered along the way? 

The Best Advice I've Ever Given

As you grow up, you learn a lot about the in's and out's of societal normality's and what is expected of yourself as a person in each stage of adolescence. I know that it can be tricky, because most of the time I lie in bed at night reminiscing on the path I chose to walk down and how utterly wrong I was. I can't even tell you how many situations I've handled so poorly and the person I am today would treat so differently. As I learned all of this the hard way I began to compose a list of some of the basic advice that seems super self explanatory, but I had to learn from causing prodigious messes. 

1. People in relationships are off limits forever. You just stay away from them because given enough time every relationship is doomed to fall apart. 

2. The worst is always yet to come, but it always eventually arrives, and at that point you regroup and pull your life together once again. 

3. The possibility of "what if" is strong enough to motivate even the most apathetic of us to accomplish tasks we never believed possible. 

4. The secret to being boring is to tell everyone everything you know. 

5. We compare the lowest moments of our lives to the highlights of everyone else's lives. 

The Girl behind the Bow (and what coruscation means)

Coruscation: a verb meaning the brillant reflection of life, or the sparkle and shine of a light. The minute I discovered the word I knew it would become one of the those words that never really left me. What it truly means I have yet to really figure out, all I know is that I like the hope it inspires within me when it runs through my head. I hope that the life becomes a brillant reflection of light for me, and I hope that I can find myself through this shimmering light.