Things I Learn as I Get Older

Things I’m realizing:

-          Just because you love someone and they love you back does not mean that either one of you is good for the other.

-          If you feel sad about a choice you made, it does not mean you made the wrong choice.

-          Sometimes, it’s okay to be selfish and look out for #1, first and foremost.  (Everyone else is, after all).

-          As you get older, it becomes apparent that some people are and some are not worth investing time in.  We have a limited number of hours in a day (and realistically, a limited number of days in our lives) with which to spend with friends and people we care about, so be sure that the people whose lives you are investing in as well as the people who are investing in yours are people that are worth your affection.  Cuz humans can be so wonderful and/or so fucking shitty.  Make good choices with whom you surround yourself.

I just want to be treated like I would treat somebody else, really.  I think that’s the problem.  I’ve been with people who treated me kinda shitty and with people who treated me like gold.  They don’t work out for me.  It’s not the people, I don’t think.  I think it’s the way they make me feel. 

I date ass holes for two of the following reasons: (#1) - there’s no risk of them getting attached because they’re ass holes anyway and view you as a temporary fix to them being single.  “I mean, I care about you, but I just don’t want to fall for you.”  Yeah, there’s nothing to fall for because the heart you do have is folded and tucked away in the bottom of a drawer with socks and condoms on top of it and there’s no room in that drawer for me to climb in and cuddle with you.  You’re not even there; you don’t even know where it is anymore.  “It’s somewhere in that drawer, why do you keep bringing it up?! God!”  You had no intention of showing it to me.  It just kinda happened to get lost somewhere in the mix.  It’s a damn shame you lost touch with feeling.  (#2) – There’s a slim chance of me getting attached to the ass hole type of dude, because I would like to think that I won’t take him too seriously.  But then, I usually end up getting semi-attached and believe the ass hole dude to merely be “misunderstood” or to genuinely have a “good heart,” he’s just “damaged.”  That’s probably true—he probably is fairly damaged—but is that really a reason to date someone?  Do we date for the potential we see in someone or how they really are, how they make us feel, what we see in them as in present tense, not some imaginary sense.  Someone who has problems ought to be actively fixing those problems instead of just making excuses for them...  Because they’re an ass hole.

I’ve also been with people who treated me awesome, which was just fricking weird.  Don’t get me wrong, you taking me to dinner, watching movies, etc. is all super nice.  But it’s all so normal and boring and clingy-feeling.  If it’s all flowers and candles and you’re perfect to begin with, I feel like you’re following some “To Do” list that some other girl made for you as her project, and now you think you’re God’s gift to womankind because you would hypothetically please any woman with your romantically in-tune gestures.  I’m not every girl.  A slingshot would mean more to me than a flower.  A bird’s feather would mean more than chocolate.  Think again, bruh—it’s boring.  BORING.

I want to open my own door sometimes, I want you to wrestle with me sometimes (trust me, you’re not going to break me), I want you to step on my toes so I can tell you it bothered me and see you learning, trying to make me happy in the future. 

I’m tired of putting so much effort into the wrong types of relationships!  I have invested myself in all types of dudes, but I find that my problem is always that they don’t treat me the way I want to be treated, and I allow that to continue because I’m empathetic and feel like it ought be a “give and take.”  That’s all fine and good, but I ought be responsible enough in the future to recognize when someone is treating me well, when they’re not, and how to fall or not fall in love with a person who is merely going to break my heart in the future.  It’s simply not worth it. 

So I will spend more time at the forefront of a friendship/relationship ensuring that the person that I am spending time with is worth my time and investment in the first place.  And I will be unapologetic in saying no or yes to future dates, because the date is owed honesty and I should feel comfortable enough in my own sense of perception of character and the interworkings of two characters to own up to my decisions.  If I could have kept myself from liking some of the people I liked in the past before I started liking them, I would be a much less bitter person and probably have learned just as many lessons; they would have just involved self-control instead of heart-break.  And I wouldn't have hurt anyone in the process either. 

 “Let go, or be dragged.”

—	Zen Proverb (via mistakse) Quote,

The End.

Oh, also, there's this on what love isn't.

A Good Girl

I'll be tough.  I'll be classy.  I"ll be strong.  I won't fight back.  If I do, it will be with calm words and in a deserving tone.

There's nothing worse than someone saying they don't want to be with you romantically because "you're too good."  It makes me wish I didn't respect myself or that I could just get shit-faced, drop a bunch of acid, and sleep around with people, cuz Lord knows it'd probably be fun.

I feel like I'm standing up for a cause by being a "good girl," but for what reason?  What point am I trying to make?  It's not like I'm super religious or anything anymore.

I'm fine with standing out for these reasons.  I'm obviously going to.  But I hate being turned down because of the very things for which I feel like I should be appreciated.

Sometimes I want to do something really shocking just to make people believe that I'm not a good, naiive girl, that I can't be controlled.  That I can be a mean person or a slut or a wild child or make everyone feel uncomfortable. To make people realize that I won't always stand in the corner I'm put in, I won't stay where you leave me, and I'll be my own damn person, however I feel right then. FUCK!

Get in my way, I dare you.  I'm ready to fight.

Why do I feel this way?

I'll be tough.  I'll be classy.  I"ll be strong.  I won't fight back.  

I can't tell you what I will or won't do.  I don't know what I want to do, but I'm okay with it.

Skin Coat

I just want to create memories after all.  I don't want to get a full night's sleep in.  I don't want to have tomorrow planned out.  I want to go with the flow.  I want to be carried away in life.  I want to run outdoors naked like an Indian.  I want to be free.

I'm also thinking about the fact that my skin is notoriously bad these days.  As an experiment, I solemnly swear to go without carbonated beverages of a non-energy-based formula for the month of October (from this point forward) as well as add several new habits into my daily schedule such as the following: washing my face/neck/back before bed, applying lotion before bed, applying J&J oil directly following showers, drinking more water, etc.  Consider this my route to Shannyn-Sossamon-style happiness.  (My skin will obviously darken and become less freckled as a direct result of my choices to improve my health and overall clarity.)

Dog problems, dog problems, dog problems.  

And once my skin becomes a goddess-like coat cascading my bodily frame, I will begin to re-enter the art of photography, taking nudies so I can draw my first naked body (cuz I just realized I've never drawn a naked body, much less my own).  Until then, I'll just wear lots of clothes and makeup and pretend like I run a fashion blog and care only of aLl ThINgs ALEXA CHUNG and BAMBI NORTHWOOD-BLYTH and ERIN WASSON.

It's whatever.

Changing My Mind

I can’t make you feel a certain way.  I can’t make you feel something you don’t feel.  It never hurts to present the idea to you—give you the opportunity to think of the situation from my perspective—to show you what you’re working with.  But the bottom line is that I can’t change how you feel, no matter what I say.  No matter what I don’t say.  No matter what I write.  No matter what I sing.  No matter what I play.  No matter what I wear.  No matter what I don’t wear.  No matter what I surprise you with.  No matter how much I help you.  No matter how much space I give you.  No matter how happy I was.  No matter how unhappy I am.  No matter how thin I get.  Is all of this a senseless beg for your attention?  Or do I just do this to myself because I like it?  I don’t know.  The root idea is that you still feel the way you feel, and I cannot change it.

But you know what I’m learning?

That’s not a reflection on me.  It’s not that I’m not wording it correctly or that I’m stupid because I feel a certain way that you don’t.  It just means I feel this way, you feel that way.  Neither of us are wrong.  Neither of us have to make each other understand.  Sometimes people just disagree.  

I don’t have to apologize for feeling the way I feel.  Neither should you. 

Humans are beautiful things. I’m beautiful.  You’re beautiful. 

I don’t always feel this way.  But I can remember a time that every person I know held some beauty and mystery and magnetism.  It’s all still there somewhere.

Sometimes I wish I didn't care so much about emotions.

Sometimes I wish I could get dressed without remembering where I was when I wore the outfit last.

Sometimes I wish nostalgia could be just another big word that I don't care about.

I think about you all of the time.

Everybody knows it.

I feel a fool.

And the worst part is that I don't even care.

I just try to do what a normal person would do.

But I don't feel that way at all.

The Realistic View of Love

And this is my story.....  It took a year to write.  It took two years to post (apparently).  Human's have the power to change each other's lives for the better or worse...  So don't be a fuck-up, bro.  It can really hurt those around you for longer than you'd think.

The Realistic View of Love

     I wonder if I would have wanted to know what love could really be like.  It seems that nearly everyone, when he or she is young, believes that love is a fairytale: “Love is patient, love is kind,” that love is the be-all and end-all to human existence.  I wish that I could say that love truly is all of these things.  Unfortunately, love, while wonderful in its own right, also comes with a risk of deep heartbreak and a bruising of the soul deeper than one knows is possible.
     I was nineteen.  I didn’t know anything about the world.  I was still friends with the only ex-boyfriends I had ever had, one being my childhood sweetheart, one being a tall, beautiful boy with little substance—the kind that naive nineteen-year-old girls fall so easily for.  I can honestly say I didn’t love either of these boys.  They were movie-watching partners or someone with whom I could listen to music.  They were nothing more than friends except for the occasional peck on the lips, followed by slight giggles and blushes—such sweet relationships with no real feeling.  That is, until him.
     I met him at a friend of a friend’s house while I was out of town on tour with my band.  I was always very reserved, when it came to boys.  I am not the type of girl to “throw myself” at anyone, but I told everyone in my band that he was “the most beautiful person I had ever seen in my life.”  He truly was.  I still remember that I was wearing my Chuck Taylor’s that I had bought when I was sixteen.  I kept looking around, noticing that no one else was wearing Chuck Taylor’s; in fact, they were wearing shoes that I had never seen before-- cool ones.  However, I decided that I didn’t care-- I was there to play music, sleep, and drive to the next city.  He wasn’t supposed to like me back-- I was wearing Chuck Taylor’s, and he was beautiful.  He kept trying to sit by me that night, and I always went to the opposite end of the room from him-- I have always been slightly cautious of being too close to anyone, either physically or emotionally, despite whatever attraction I may have for that person.
     Over the next three months, he would drive into town every other weekend or so and see me; it wasn’t long before I realized that I was beginning to like him a great deal.  He was interesting; he thought I was interesting.  We stayed up late, we played in the rain, we smoked our lungs out, we stole each other’s clothes, we kissed and were not embarrassed.  We fell in love.  I still think of those days as the happiest days of my life-- I had no care in the world.  I finally understood what this talk of love was-- the thing that I had looked forward to my entire life was now here.  It was exactly how I would’ve wanted it.
     The rest of this story feels too sad to state.  I wish I could stop here, but that wouldn’t be the true story of love.  See, the thing is, just as easy as it is to fall in love with the things one views as God’s most wonderful creation, it is also equally as easy to begin thinking only about oneself.  After all, love “has a nasty habit of disappearing overnight” as the Beatles said.
     Nine months after that, I moved four hours away from my home to the city where he lived.  My family told me not to move for him, but, of course, I did not listen.  This boy had shown me what life and love was about; why would I listen to logic again?  Things were great at first-- we spent a great deal of time together and really got had the chance to know that side of one another that is impossible to know when distance is a factor in a relationship.  I wrote a song called “Don’t Grow Old Without Me” about him, about all the things that I would miss about him, strangely enough.  “…It’s the things I’ll miss when I’m away.  Take me by my heart so gently and know that it always will be yours to hold.  So please don’t grow old without me.”  I was crying while I wrote it, wondering why I was thinking such things when I was so happy currently with him.  I played the song for him.  It was a beautiful, sad moment; I think we both knew that the song would ring truer than we would’ve had it.  It’s odd how a person can have a “feeling” something will go wrong before it actually does.  In this instance, the premonition could not have been more accurate.  I don’t know what led to our downfall-- maybe too much of a change too quickly.  Maybe we fell out of love.  I feel that falling in love can be an accident, but falling out of love has to require some force.  Maybe she was that force-- the “other woman” that every girl is fearful of when in a relationship.
     She was my friend too-- we were similar in appearance, and we both played music.  She secretly liked him, and she never told either of us until we took a break.  I suggested the break, somehow thinking that it would bring him and I together as stronger or something.  What silly notions we females can get about what causes a man to “come to his senses.”  Instead, the break ended with me moving back to Shreveport two weeks later and both of us feeling utterly lost, wondering if we had made the right decision.  Heartbroken does not even begin to explain the feeling that I had.  I was numb. I forced myself to not think about anything that would involve my emotions-- because once my emotions were involved, I could not control myself; I scared myself.  I lost fifteen pounds.  I cried myself to sleep every night for months.  My hair started falling out.  I dreamed about him almost every night for a year after.   That heartbreak magnified when I found out that, two weeks after I moved back to Shreveport, the “other woman” was pregnant with his child.  Suddenly, I felt betrayed, as if all of it was a lie.  Despite the fact that I would’ve never wanted a child at a time such as that, some odd maternal instinct whispered to me that the child should’ve been mine.  We had loved each other! … I thought…  I always thought we would be… We had to be…  I still don’t really know how I feel about all of it.  He is now the father of a beautiful girl, whose mother looks similar to me and whom he, admittedly, does not love.  
     I always pretend as if it doesn’t bother me--some odd coping mechanism, I’m sure.  In fact, this is the first time I’ve written about it in detail ever.  When I allow myself to actually think about it, I realize that it really did hurt me.  It shapes my view of love.  Did I do something wrong?  Was he the one who did all the wrong?  Love seems much more of a risk than a vacation to me now.  It’s Russian roulette instead of hide and seek.  I’m not quite sure if I view it as a painful good or an occasional good pain-- anything close to that degree of love seems petrifying to me now.  However, I do know that I still think about love.  I still wonder about “next time” and how I’ll do it right, maybe different.
     He subconsciously did exactly what I asked him not to do-- he grew up without me.  He is a father; I am a girl that is struggling to figure out how to be comfortable holding someone else’s hand again.  However, now I know how it feels to hold someone else’s hand.  Now I know what it is like to feel heart surges when someone says they love you.  Now I know what it feels like to give everything that you have to offer to someone else.  I know how to love someone, and I know how I feel when someone loves me back.  I know how being betrayed and forgotten feels.  In a way, it feels as if I am an elderly woman-- one who loved, lost, and saw those close to her fade into memory.  I hear the bitter side in me whisper that love is not “worth it” or that I should “expect it to go bad” before it does; but I hear the child in me say that while love may not be a fairytale, it’s a story-- your own story.  Love may not always be a selfless, patient virtue, but it is at least the deepest emotion I can imagine feeling.  Love may not be the be-all and end-all to the human experience of life, but it is something to look forward to.
     When looking back on my experience with love, it seems as if love is a multi-faceted dice loaded towards the highest number-- a game of hearts with high stakes and low odds-- a gamble.  For the most part, I have been dealt bad hands thus far.  However, I trust that when the cards fall just so, it will, then, be every bit worth the risk.  In the words of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”  As difficult as this is to type, one word at a time-- I. Would. Not. Change. A. Thing.

Corresponding blogpost that I was looking for yesterday

Stay True to Thyself

I kind of had an epiphony this week.  I guess there are so many people (myself included) that say "I wish I were this way" or "I wish I could do that."  I just had the thought that it's their own fault for being content to merely talk about the things they want.  For example, I complain about not having money or about hating Shreveport and wanting to get out or about how I don't have time to work out.  I'm about to graduate, at which point all of these things can be fixed.  Really, I could fix them before if I work hard.

I had gotten discouraged with music, thinking I wasn't good enough to be calling myself the same thing as the people I respect so much.  START PRACTICING!!!

So here's my late New Years Resolutions apparently.

• Fix my bike and start biking to save on gas/exercise
• Have at least 30 minutes of exercise per day (to start out).  I'd like it to be an hour.  This ought include 30 minutes of cardio and 20 minutes of toning every other day.  I miss being fit.  So I'm going to get fit instead of feeling sorry for myself.
• Start writing songs, good ones and bad ones.  The reason I don't write often is because if I don't initially like a song, I scratch it and stop working on it.  Instead, my reasoning ought be "I don't like this song.... How can I change it to make it something I like?"   (All of this feels so elementary to be mapping out, but my OCD part loves lists)
• Become more outgoing.  I'm not sure if I've gotten steadily more and more introverted or if it just never mattered until now, but I have realized that I am so standoffish from people that it is often debilitating.  I'm not sure if it's a matter of me not giving people a chance or just not caring to try or of being scared.  But none of these things are good at all, and I can change any of them that I want.

I guess, to sum up, I just don't want to settle for being what I am when I'm lazy and not trying.  I want to be a bigger and better person that knows what they want and goes for it-- a kinder, healthier, less selfish person.  I don't want to say "This is how I am."  I want to say, "This is how I would like to be" and then DO IT!  You've only got one life to live.

Oh, yeah.  And I want to start doing what I feel like without thinking of what people will think.  I feel like I've held myself in and back for so long for what?!  I'm about to have a degree that I never wanted.  I've wasted four years to get some approval from my family.  I don't really regret it, if that's what it takes.  But honestly, regardless of what I do or don't do, I think my family will never really "get me" and I won't ever "get them."  It seems better to agree to disagree and all of us be individually happy.  That's all you can ask for right?  To love your life and the people in it for being the way they are?

All that to say, I'm getting a tattoo this week.

That Time I Gave That Speech

How life changes...

There are very few things that stay the same in one's life.

Everything changes.

The people in your life stand by your side or they don't.  Depending on what they're going through.  It all appears to be subjective.

I find that the only constants in my life revolve around two things-- my social tendencies and one thing I can't shake.  (I don't even want to shake it).

I usually have the same tendencies.  I can tell if I like you as a person or not upon a first meeting usually.  I get really close to them.  And then I get scared that I shouldn't have ever gotten so close to them.  At this point, if I decide that I shouldn't have gotten so close to them, I either run and distance myself from them, become a hermit and disappear from my social circle, or move.  If I decide that it's okay that I'm that close to someone, I dive even deeper into them.  And then I start questioning the other person, whether they're acting honestly or not.  Are they a good person?  Do they even like me as a person or are they just doing me a favor to hang out with me?  All of these are stupid questions that I shouldn't even really be concerned with at this point-- I should've decided to trust or not initially instead of waiting to ask myself important and/or stupid questions.  Once I decide all of these things, I ask "Am I happy?"  I never know the answer to that question.  I just keep looking.  For what, I don't know.

It's at this point--whenever I'm having problems of any kind...  (in fact, sometimes when I feel like I'm on top of the world) it all comes back to the same problem I had when I was sixteen.  I just don't talk about it anymore.  Most of the time I don't even act on it.  I just think about it, toy with the idea of it.  I don't know what good that does me.  I don't know if it's for attention or if it's a cry out for something or if it really does make me feel better.  But I felt like I was really happy back then and everyone else thought it was wrong.  But I loved it.  And I always want that back.  I felt totally in control of myself.  I've never felt so in control of myself as then.

And now I'm getting older and it's not even socially acceptable to be that way still at my age (as if it was ever acceptable in the first place).  I should be thinking about getting married and having kids or something.  The truth is, I'm scared I won't ever be able to have kids because of that in the first place.  And that makes me not want to get married.  I don't want to fail at my job.  It breaks my heart. And makes me want to do it all over again as some form of self-punishment/self-reward--something to show for it.  I don't understand it.

Any time I've talked about it in the past, I spoke of it as if it were some past problem that I'm totally over.  I still feel the problem.  I just don't talk about it anymore.

I don't know why I'm writing this.  I'll never ever want to talk about it.  That's personal.

But I guess it's the only time I've admitted to it in present tense.  Whatever that's good for.

This blog is horrible.

And This Is One of the Best Descriptions of It

"Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life…You give them a piece of you. They didn’t ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like ‘maybe we should be just friends’ turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love."

— Neil Gaiman