Self Image

Being a young woman in this day and age is challenging. Recently, I have been struggling with self image, and I know I am not the only one. We are constantly surrounded by these images of flawless women on television, advertisements and magazines. Yet we never stop to consider that these woman have a team of professionals working on their hair and makeup. Or the fact that the photographer has access to Photoshop. These images we see are distorted and not attainable for an average person lacking the funds of celebrities. Girls strive to achieve these “norms” of society. I am guilty of that. I have always wished I was thinner, had clearer skin, prettier hair and the list goes on. I look at myself in the mirror and instantly point out everything I am not satisfied with. It is the sad truth. We are our toughest critics and in order to achieve a positive self image we need to start loving our flaws and what makes us special. I hope to continue to work on that myself and encourage others to do so. We are all beautiful and unique.

Becoming “Whole”

Lately, I’ve been going on my own personal spiritual journey aka SOUL SEARCHING. Yeah, I know it sounds kind of hippyish but nothing wrong with that. I realized that there’s so much to life that I’ve been missing out on because of this culture that creates this sense of rushing. Life is NOT about rushing into anything. And I mean absolutely ANYTHING. My “journey” has thus far opened my eyes to the fact that I’m not whole and I’m not completely satisfied with myself. I personally think in order to obtain that satisfaction of completely loving yourself you must first find who you’re meant to be.    

Have you ever heard the phrase “you must first love yourself in order to love another”. There’s so much truth that radiates from that saying, how in the world are you supposed to love someone else if you don’t love the person that’s most important to you, which is yourself. I just recently got out of a relationship that turned sour, we started dating with full intent of putting God first in our hearts. Which is the first step to a successful relationship but following that rule is the fact that you must LOVE yourself. And we didn’t, we we’re young and insecure. Basically, my point of bringing this up is there’s no rush in finding love, we we’re so convinced we were meant to be together. Clearly we weren’t, and it took so much willpower and confidence to end something because I was afraid of hurting him. In the end, holding on for so long only hurt me more, if you have that little voice in the back of your mind hinting that something isn’t right, TRUST IT. I ignored mine for half a year and I experienced a relationship that only tore me down and stressed me out.  

However, from this experience is where I decided to begin finding who I am and becoming whole. Of course I strayed from the path a few times, I mean I am in college (which doesn’t entirely justify it) but I’ll get back to that later. Anyways, after my break up, which was so beyond freeing, a friend of mine told me I should do some soul searching. So I began my journey. I decided I’d start with getting back into consistently going to church and prayerfully living each day. I also had this great devotional by Joel Olsteen that I’d start each morning with. I was doing great for a month or so…and then the loneliness hit and the awkward college crushes started occurring. One of the guys I liked invited me to a party (my first time drinking) and thus began my crazy semester of going out 2 to 3 times a week. I can be an extremely awkward person at times so I guess the confidence boost alcohol gave me made me feel better about myself BUT it was only temporary. Now, I don’t want anyone thinking I did anything risque because I didn’t, still a virgin! What opened my eyes to this lifestyle was the fact that I’d feel even more lonely and empty the next day. There was absolutely no fulfillment in going out every single weekend. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying going out and drinking is bad, I still do it every once in awhile and always with really good friends. Although, cutting back on that lifestyle has really helped me in reaching my goal and viewing what I want in life from a different perspective. 

Fast forward to now, I’ve been home for the summer and returned to my church here. I volunteered for VBS and wow those kiddos have so much fiery passion for God it was wonderful! It kind of made me realize that I want be on fire for God, I want to walk in his light. I want to become more intentional and build people up and empower them. I want to make others feel the love of God through my actions. I think giving unto others is a factor in becoming whole. There is so much fulfillment to be found in helping others. My soul searching is still underway but I just wanted to share this little (actually kind of long) tidbit! 

 

Breakups, They’re Not Fun

The other day I was looking through old facebook messages and happened upon a message an ex-boyfriend of mine sent to a friend, who he had never met, in an attempt to prove a point as to why I shouldn’t have broken up with him. Just a few facts, we dated for two months and we worked together. Enjoy:

“Here it is…
When I started writing this, I wrote it for the simple reason that getting my thoughts on paper clears my head. Now I have great desire to send this to ******, but I feel it would serve no purpose and would just unnecessarily upset her, which isn’t something I want to do. It’s unfair that I suffer while she’s off in her little ****** world having a super-fun time. I realize our relationship is over and there’s no point in sending it to her, but I can’t resist sending it to someone. ****** has singled you out as a close friend, so I’ve sent it to you.
Reasons I am mad at ******
1 She broke up with me -(this tends to make anyone sad and eventually angry
2 She broke up with me because she “can’t handle being in a relationship right now” because “she has too much going on” –This is bullshit. She thinks she has a lot going on? She doesn’t. She’s a Sophomore. The workload only increases junior and senior year. I had school, college applications, scholarship applications, two jobs, family, and a gf-******. I, not ******, had a lot going on. By this logic she will never be in another relationship throughout her high school career. But she will. This thought angers me. It makes me think “This reason is simply a front for something else.”
3 She broke up with me because I “will be going off to college and she doesn’t want to have to deal with getting over me at the beginning of Junior year.” –Wtf… I liked ******. I would have continued the relationship simply because I cared more about her than I did about how I would cope in the future. I would rather break it off at the end of summer when we won’t be seeing each other anymore than right now when I have to see her all the time at work. She’s worried about how her Junior year is going to start off? This just seems selfish to me. Selfish. Thanks for making the END of my SENIOR year a real FUCKING blast.
4 She broke up with me the week before we both had Spring Breaks. We had agreed that one big problem was that we didn’t get to spend enough time together. So when the chance was finally almost here… *KABLAM* she decided she no longer wanted to be in a relationship.
5 She broke up with me about 5 weeks before prom. That’s great. I spent the first 4 weeks feeling like sh*t and wasn’t in the best mood to ask someone new. Now I have no prom date. I doubt I will go. Fantastic.
6 She can’t make up her mind about anything, ever. She broke up with me, even though I expressed I didn’t want to. When I continued to express my feelings that she had made a bad decision, she went into “I don’t know what I want” mode and couldn’t make up her mind on whether she wanted to remain with me or not. ****** was off playing in her la la land constantly pushing back the decision that lay in front of her while I sat in the corner shedding tears and falling to pieces. I finally couldn’t take it anymore and I pushed for an answer. She gave it. “The answer’s no.”
7 ****** doesn’t express her feelings. She bottles them up inside and pretends that there isn’t a problem. This patented “****** solution” was applied toward me. ****** loves to pretend there is no problem and that everything is ok. Its like she magically forgot that she broke up with me. She magically forgot that I feel like shit and that I’m sad and angry all the time. She magically doesn’t feel anything. She doesn’t feel guilty (which she should,) she doesn’t feel angry, she doesn’t feel sad. Or at least… not that I can tell. “Showing your emotions doesn’t help,” ****** says. SURE IT DOES!!! It shows that she cares! It shows that this is difficult for her too. Obviously its not.
8 ****** dated me for two months and then broke up with me. Why couldn’t she just have said at the beginning “I can’t handle a relationship right now.” She handled it pretty well in January and February. What dramatically changed in those two months that made her change her mind? Usually it doesn’t take two months to realize when you don’t want to enter a relationship. Its more like two dates, two weeks maybe. Thanks for wasting two months of my time, *******. She led me on, she waited until I got attached, and then decided to flush our relationship down the toilet.
9 I wrote her a crappy poem. I spent a lot of time on it, even though it was terrible. It hurts that she broke up with me a good 3 weeks after I wrote it for her on Valentines day. I wanted it back, for obviously it didn’t mean much. “No, it really does mean a lot,” ****** said. “Bullshit,” I say. If it meant a lot she would have seen past her crappy reasons and not sabotaged a good thing for both of us.
10 She wants to be “friends” because she “still cares about me.” I could go on a big rant about why this is one of the worst possible things you could ever say to an ex, whether it be a boy or girl. Actually, I think I will. When I say “you” I mean a hypothetical girl who just broke up with her bf, not ******. Why do you still want to be friends? You just broke up with me… the reason for that is because you don’t want to be with me anymore. Being friends contradicts that. When a girl says “I still care about you and I still want to be friends,” this says several things to a guy. 1) Perhaps she isn’t over me yet. After all, she “still cares.” This gives false hope. It’s like torture. Being friends with an ex you still care about IS torture. 2) When a girl wants to be friends it could simply mean they feel guilty. They feel bad about breaking up and know they shouldn’t break up so in order to make themselves sleep well at night they throw up this cornball “I want to be friends still” line because they think its less harsh and it will somehow make it less of a blow to the guy. It doesn’t help. They should feel guilty. Saying that you still want to be friends is more of an insult than a comfort. 3) Wanting to be friends can mean that although she’s ending the relationship right now, she can still keep tabs on you and know what you’re up to because you are still “friends.” This means that she is free to search for a new boyfriend at her leisure but always has her “friend” to fallback on if she fails in her search. Obviously this is not the kind of relationship an ex wants to enter. 5) Also, as a “friend,” an ex gf can watch and see if the ex bf attempts to start a new relationship. If it has potential, she can sabotage it because she’s jealous that her ex started a new relationship before she did. . 6) There is always the rare possibility that they do, simply, wish to be your friend. Morgan is a kind, sweet girl, at heart, and I believe she is one of the few that actually would like to be friends. Saying you want to be friends is a bad move. If you really do want to be friends, don’t say it, just do it. Actions are more powerful than words. If you really want to remain friends, try to make it work. It may not work, mind you, for it is quite likely, quite probable that the guy in question isn’t very happy with you at the moment.
In fact, he may just want to get away from you altogether because it simply hurts to be around you. Out of numbers 1-6 on the“Want to be friends” rant, I believe 1,2, and 6 apply to ******. This is the way I feel with ******, kind of. I want to be friends with ******, yet I don’t. I don’t know if I can. I still like ******, yet im sad and hurt and extremely pissed off. Seeing ****** all the time does nothing but re-stir my emotions, especially since she never fails to employ the “****** solution.” I tried to get away, I quit my job, but I failed to find a new one so I am forced to remain at Hobby Lobby. I’ve tried to be pleasant toward ****** and I’ve tried to be “friends.” When I see her, though, I just fill with rage. I’ve tried to still text her but she doesn’t usually respond. On the other hand, it annoys me that she even wants to be friends. Why would she want to be friends? There is no point, by her logic, for I’m still going to be leaving for college in August and whatever “friendship” we have will come to an end. Isn’t that a main reason she broke up with me? Our “relationship” would have had to ended in August because we will no longer be able to hang out? The same principle applies to being friends… ****** makes no sense, whatsoever. I am lost…”

Now, I broke up with him for the mere reason I was no longer interested. We weren’t compatible, that was just it. I couldn’t see myself with him in the future so I broke it off. Breakups are hard, for me I’ve always done the breaking up but it still always ends in tears. There’s something about knowing that that person may choose to completely remove themselves from your life and they’re completely entitled to that. But don’t let that fear influence your decision, yes it’s going to hurt but if you’re not happy then it’s not worth it. Life goes on and they will find the person that will build them up and bring them more joy than you could have and the same will happen for you. So my piece of advice is to not stay with someone because you’re to scared to breakup with them, if you’re not happy then do something about it. I recall seeing a quote stating that out of all the mediocre things in life love shouldn’t be one of them, and I agree. 

Cyber Bullying and College

Okay, so college, isn’t that the time when you’re supposed to grow up and leave all that stupid bullying crap behind you? Apparently not! There’s this oh so “lovely” app called Yikyak. Ever heard of it? Well, you see it’s basically a “burn book” in which people post anonymously about anything they want to and others can comment on it. Popular topics include sluttiest girls on campus, fattest girls in each sorority, worst fraternities, who’s gay, and late night booty calls. Frankly, I think it’s just sad and pathetic. The lack of maturity on campus disappoints me. I can’t walk around campus without wondering who all these horrible, insecure people are. People need to realize that the words they post online can truly hurt somone, I’ve noticed several names that have appeared frequently on the app and I know those people are greatly affected by the nasty things said about them. So why can’t we all just accept each other? You may not agree with the choices people make but cyber bullying is in no way a justified means of calling them out. College is about making mistakes and learning from them. It’s about finding out who you are and establishing yourself as your own individual. So let’s allow these people to do just that, and stop tearing them down with anonymous immature “yaks”.

Love

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about life and love. What exactly defines love? With our ever changing world I feel like the definition of love is changing too. So what exactly is it we look for when looking for love? How exactly do you know if you’re in love? I mean, apparently high schoolers think they’ve got love figured out after a mere two weeks of dating, but does love have a timeline? About a week ago I was ranting to my mom about how ridiculous some people are, thinking they’re in love after a month or planning on getting married after only six months of dating. All she said to me was “stop being so negative”. So that got me thinking, is there such thing as love at first sight? Is it really possibly to fall in love after only a month? I thinks it’s possible for some people but to know if it’s real, well that takes time.The last time I was in “love” was over a year ago and it was with my high school boyfriend of two years. He was attractive, sweet, passionate and a gentleman. It was my first time feeling love or so I thought. I question if it was real love or not, sometimes I think I was just in love with the idea of us. We had so many differences, and I honestly could never see a future with him but he was so convinced that we were meant to get married. So I settled for about the last year of our relationship hanging on to this false idea of love. So what exactly is my idea of love? Well, I think love is derived from respect. A huge issue in my last relationship was respect, he continuously pushed my boundaries intimately and didn’t respect my views. If someone truly loves you they’d respect every aspect of you. The next important factor in love is encouragement and support. In a relationship you should always uplift your partner and support their crazy ideas and maintain the highest level of faith in their dreams. Love is being there whenever you’re needed and being there by choice. It’s those deep conversations and being able to sit there in complete silence without feeling awkward. It’s accepting every single little flaw and embracing the beauty of it. Love is that longing feeling you get when you’re away from them. It’s being weird together and laughing and having fun. Love is having the will to hang on when things get tough. It’s the ability to work through any problem no matter the size. Love is when they’re the person on your mind all the time. Love is crazy and beautiful. It’s a concept that will never be fully grasped but it’s something we all search for.