2017

Everyone always talks about what things they are going to do in the New year, but it is never anything that will make them a better wholesome person. It is always something like losing as much weight as they can, wear less black, or travel more. I used to be one of those people, always trying to change something physical about myself. Trying to achieve something that will make me fit that mold of pretty that I had in my mind. But this year it will be different this year I want to learn to love the body that I’m in rather than change it. It is much easier to decide to love what you have rather than try to change yourself entirely. Why should I change my loud and proud personality in order too impress my peers? Why should I change my body to look more like a Victoria’s secret model when I could just  like it the way it is? Why should I put myself through the hurt of not loving myself when I don’t have to fit anyone else’s image of myself?

New years isn’t some magical portal that changes all of us and cleanses us of all the things of the previous year. The New Year is literally just our calendar resetting itself so that all of our holidays can be around the same time every year. Time doesn’t magically reverse. You aren’t going to magically be able to forget your last relationship or the way you were hurt in the past 365 days. There is no magical solution for your problems, and the new year especially isn’t going to magically wash your fears and worries from you hair. The only thing or event on this earth that can help you heal is you adoring and loving yourself. Though that concept may seem very hard for so many people it is easier than it may come across as. Loving yourself is a step by step process and you have to come to the conclusion of why you deserve to be happy. We all deserve to be happy but we each have our own different reason to be just that. Don’t let a New year’s resolution decide where you will be in the new year, don’t let a figure created to keep us on track decide what you will do. There should no longer be a such thing as ‘New Year, New Me’. A new year shouldn’t make you into a new person, your desire for healing and progression should be what makes you want to cleanse and become new. 2017 is a year of many things for me, I have so much that I want to heal and accept about myself. I may always preach as to why others deserve to be happy but it should be made clear that I am still on a journey to better understand myself and to find my own happiness.

A Crush

Through 17 years I have experienced many different kinds of hurt. The kind that stems from death, the kind that stems from lost friends. But the most fascinating one would have to be the kind that stems from heartbreak, this one was always the most painful because it is the one you blame yourself for. It is the one where you wonder what you did to hurt the other person, it’s the one that makes you wonder what is wrong with yourself. This hurt is so gut wrenching because sometimes you inflict it on yourself. I have learned that sometimes the relationship was toxic from the beginning and that I should have seen the abusive behaviors. That I should have seen when I was being manipulated and when I was made to do things that I did not truly have the desire or inspiration to do. This hurt is one that you blame yourself for but a lot of the time it really isn’t your fault.

Though I have experienced that hurt, I have also experienced the feeling of absolutely liking everything about a person. Like the way that he smells, or the way he smiles, and even the way he looks when he is reading things off of his phone.  I have experienced the sensation of wanting to study every part of his face just so I can tell him everything I like about it. I am experiencing laughing at nothing for ages just because I find him funny. The concerning part about all of this is that sometimes it all comes full circle. You emerge from the hurt and pain and you attempt to move on, and then in the midst of finding new happiness in a new person you begin to fear that they may hurt you in the same way the last one did. You begin to fear that he may tell you the same lies you have heard before or that he may even run back to the last person he was with. You put your everything into trying to trust them. Being the anxiety filled insecure person that I am, these fears are very much alive. I have to force myself to trust in the now and believe in him. But what do I know these are just thoughts from a 17 year old.

Day by Day

There are days where I wake up and the tears immediately begin to fall down my face. Because I know I am about to be forced to go through another day with a false smile on my face. I lay there and I think of every student in the school that I can’t stand and every teacher that spikes my anxiety with their lack of understanding. And as I rise from my safe space, my bed, I think of how heavy my body is and how every step feels as though I am filled with cement. I take this thing, life, step by step and still it is almost unbearable to deal with. Sometimes I wonder if i brought all of this upon myself. I have spent years making sure everyone else was okay but to this day I am not even sure that I am okay. I have tried many things to make me feel better about how shitty i feel. Stealing sips of my mother’s alcohol and taking puffs of a disgusting cigarette. Even my writing feels exhausting at this point. But hopefully if i take this day by day things will begin to get better.

It is not fair

It is the weirdest feeling to finally let someone in after all this time of keeping my heart to myself. I have made it a habit of asking every significant other that enters my life a series of questions that makes them feel as though I am doing a full background check. So why is it that this time when I met him I felt the need to trust every single word that graced his beautiful lips. I believed everything he told me.  I believed that he could possibly make me come out of this gloom that I had settled in. Then after all of this trusting that my naive brain did I find out it was all a lie, a ruse, a cover up, whatever you want to call it. In all reality I should have known better than to trust him with something as delicate as my emotions, I should have known that in the hands of a clumsy boy my emotions would be dropped to the floor and therefore shattered.

Though it is all clear to me no I can’t help but wonder how much else he lied about. Like when he told me I was beautiful. Or when he told me I meant a lot to him. Or when he told me I was more than just a piece of ass that he was chasing. I guess I will never know since I don’t have the guts to ask, I guess I will just keep living like this. In a way where I know it is not fair, but I will simply deal with it.

Exploration

One of my biggest points of advice is always to try new things. Whether you are trying a food that you always assumed you wouldn’t like or taking  a new adventure, you have to shake things up a little bit.

Starting March of last year I told myself I would try to take as many adventures as I possibly could. This led to me trying things from zip-lining to tightrope walking.These types of experiences truly help you connect to your inner self. It encourages you to better understand the things that you are actually able to do, despite how much you may just doubt yourself. It forces you to trust your self control and to push yourself to limits that allow your body to connect to its zen in order to remain calm. It helps you to better understand how your mind may behave in a dangerous or risky situation. Placing your body in times of high adrenaline allow for you to better enjoy your points of full relaxation. I am not suggesting that you put yourself into intentional danger but I do think that you should be able to experience whatever adventures that life can throw your way.

A few suggestions include: trying a new workout class, trying a team building exercise, and maybe even trying a new social situation.

mental health time.

I left this page alone for a little while. And it’s hard to do that sometimes but it was absolutely 100% necessary. It’s hard to reminisce on time of your life that truly affected you and made you the person that you are today. But writing is something that i love to do, and it is an amazing outlet for all of the emotions that I tend to keep bottled up. Sometimes I’m just sad without a reason and other time i have enough energy and happiness to fuel the world. y absence from this blog was exactly what my title may entail. I needed mental health time, but don’t worry I’m back. And, I’m much better.

Haters

As a high school student this is something that I deal with quite frequently. Haters are typically people that do not wan to see you succeed. They want you to be happy when they receive something new, or have an improvement in their lives but when it comes to you they couldn’t care less about your progression in this world. I often further describe these individuals as “energy suckers”, these people feed off of your positivity therefore draining you. These haters or energy suckers come in many forms such as: family members, friends, acquaintances, and even peers. I am well aware that your friends are you peers but this is within a different context. Friends that are haters will be significantly less obvious about their intentions. While a peer may outwardly bully you and point out every flaw that they see on you.

I have plenty experiences with haters. But the most impactful would have to be the time that someone who I thought was my friend threw a full on temper tantrum because i made a decision to further my future. I decided to run for an important position that she had already ran for twice. Keep in mind that she failed these two times and absolutely did not want anyone else to have a shot at this position. I fought back and ran and received a position. The moral of the story is not only that some people aren’t truly your friend but also that sometimes you need to stand up against those who do not want to see you succeed. You have to fight for yourself. Because at the end of the day your haters don’t determine if you succeed. You do.

I Said I Would Be Honest Didn’t I?

I just had a panic attack. A nasty, heart wrenching, tear inducing panic attack. I couldn’t breathe, because for some reason I just can’t cope with the idea of letting down every single person that is rooting for me. I cannot cope with the idea that I may not get into college. And even if I do what am I going to do about all of those freaking student loans? I said I would be honest on this blog and the truth is I have forgotten about myself a little bit lately. I have been working and doing summer projects and programs. But I haven’t been to the beach or anywhere fun. Is the supermarket and other errands considered fun? I haven’t even gone to a friend’s house. The truth is I’m very scared of the future. I am terrified that I will not go where all of these people seem to have planned for me. I’m supposed to run for two presidential positions this year. What if I lose both races? What if I am not popular enough to win? My mom, my mentors, even my teachers believe in me so much. And that’s a lot of pressure. I’m not even sure I can promise them that I will be the CEO that they all want me to be.

Like at this point I’m running a blank on so many different things. What the hell is even a FAFSA? Are they even going to give me enough money to buy books? Are colleges going to even want me? I sure freaking hope so since I joined every club and organization I could find. I would hope so since I have dealt with so many people whose presence I can’t even stand for four years. I would hope so especially since I have dragged myself through the mud mentally to get to eve this point in my life. I have had like three midlife crises’ and I’m only 17. I work so much that I don’t even know what happens at a high school party. The only thing that pulled me out of that panic attack was the fact that I cant see my success unless I stop thinking about potential failure.

I promised that I would be honest and helpful on this blog. Well this is a time where I wanted to show the people that read this that being human is having weak moments. This was a weak moment that has taught me to keep me in mind even when I think I am already.

Acceptance of yourself

In case you haven’t heard it before, you might as well just accept the body that you have. I have great reasoning for coming to this conclusion. The same way you long for another girl’s hips, butt, or anything else, someone else is longing for something that you already possess. No matter what you think there is a girl out there that envies your hips, butt, or anything else. As bizarre as it sounds, I am a firsthand witness to it. There are girls that will straight up tell me that they hated me because they wanted my figure or even things like my lips. And then here I was craving the hips and lips of someone else.  It is within human nature to want to look and feel a certain way. The problem is that we go about it all wrong. We need to come to the agreement that you either work hard for the things that you want or you accept what you already have. In this agreement there are no waist trainers, diet pills, or magic fixes. There is only hard work and self- love.

Realization

Though it is a scary topic when it comes to my life, I think that the point where I realized that I needed to spend more time on myself was after my friend committed suicide. This was the point in my life where I witnessed what not finding inner peace could result in. This was the point where I looked at myself and I unfortunately saw diet plans, not eating, and frustration. It took me a while but then I finally realized that something was very wrong with that picture. I realized that I wanted to be happy and healthy while still reaching my goals. I had to take a step back and realize that my mental health should be just as important as my physical health. I had to learn to understand that no matter how desperate I was to look a certain way, I needed to care for the only body I’m going to have in my entire life. When my friend died in such a tragic way I was forced to transfer my emotions in a safe way . I didn’t turn to drugs or alcohol, I turned to writing poetry and doing yoga. Those are just two of the things that I wanted to share with others on this blog. I aspire to show that strength comes in all shapes and sizes, but it lives within all of us. Though this death was one of the worst experiences of my life, it was also a turn around that saved me so much heartache when it came to loving myself.It was my point of realization.