This I Believe

This I believe. I believe in the power of words and of love and forgiveness. Having been raised in a loving Baptist home, I was accustomed to hearing the messages of forgiveness, mercy, love, and compassion though I never truly understood what they meant. This past year I have struggled and faltered with the questions I had regarding these things. What truly is love and what truly is forgiveness? I was in a verbally abusive relationship not too many years back and having watched my father watch it occur and choose to say nothing about it caused me to lose just about all my trust in men. This summer I decided to be mean and manipulative back to them- having toyed with several of them at once. At first I felt in control but something inside me ached with the pain and knowledge that this wasn’t right. Many things brought upon this ache that summer. I did many things I told myself I would never do. Yet, something inside of me also questioned. . . why did I say I would never do those things? Were they truly my own choice? And it really came down to no. I was taught they were right and wrong things but then I questioned is that truly love? But anyways. When I came to realize this my ache went away with a lot of the things I did but the one things it always stayed for was the very thing that was harming others in the process. It eventually came to a halt when I took my full revenge on my ex-boyfriend. I led him on, let him cheat on his girlfriend with me, and then told her. I knew full well he still “loved” me regardless of the way he had treated me in the past and I used that to my advantage. But afterwards I felt horrible. I knew what I had done was not beneficial. It was not kind. It was revenge. It hurt him but it also hurt me. It consumed my mind, my time, and I didn’t care about the needs and values of others. I realized what forgiveness was in that moment and I realized what love was that moment. Love is warnings and shared experiences. Love isn’t fear or threats. Forgiveness is truly letting go resentment and not harboring bitterness. I believe in the power small words can have. . . small words such as I forgive you or will you forgive me or even I love you. I believe words are a way to present our thoughts and feelings to the world and unite us closer with each fellow human being. After that past summer I met a wonderful guy and we started dating. He has slowly been teaching me what love really is and what it entails. He has also been teaching me how to forgive and ask for forgiveness. I went back not too long ago to apologize to my ex-boyfriend. I asked for forgiveness and told him I forgive him for everything. I also am soon meeting with an old friend from 5years ago soon to talk about the past and tell him I forgive him. This understanding of what is love and what is forgiveness has also come about from my deeper and richer understanding of God and through the questions I have asked. I came to realize that what I used to think was love is not love but control. I came to see that the love reflected by my boyfriend is the love reflected to me by God. I came to realize that everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial and regardless of our choices (whether they be right or wrong to the world), I am still loved by the one who calls me child.

Love is kindness, mercy, forgiveness, knowing when to let someone make their own decision, a desire to understand, honest, and patient. I believe in love and the power of it.

All Is One and One is All

Everything seems to be slowing down now that the first snowfall has been completed. Snow seems to have that calming effect on people. Yesterday when we the first few inches fluttered to the ground in what some may refer to as a mini blizzard, everything seemed to calm. . . become quiet and serene. It’s as if the world comes to a halt. The world moves slower. . . whether that be from the fact people drive slower to prevent from swerving and spinning out, or whether that be from dreams, memories, and experiences now slowly becoming covered by the white layer of cold, I don’t know. Nor do I understand. Nor do I really want to. To me, the changing of seasons brings about a new chapter of life- the closing of one chapter and the beginning of a new. With the first snowfall comes an understanding of the world in a new light. People slow down. . . they watch as this past year comes to an end and is covered and buried deep, deep down in the hole of picture books and archives, to occasionally be taken out only when the time is right or they want to remember with a smile and a laugh and a fondness of the times of long ago.

I watch as this snow brings an end to a life I can honestly say I am glad I have lived and experienced. As I put away memories into my archive, I slowly relive each one; some with a fondness so sweet and gentle and some with a desire to never experience that again. But each type bring about an appreciation of my life and the things I have been able to experience.

Today in class we discussed gratitude and the things that go along with that. It reminded me of something someone told me once; to stop thinking of the days to come and instead live in the present and appreciate the here and now. Gratitude is something in which I desire to practice more and something I desire to become a part of my everyday life. In the video we watched by Louie Schwartzberg, he discussed being glad you’re alive- how when you begin to look at life around you. . . the faces of the people around you. . . the clouds and the flowers. . . you begin to see a world in which life is valued. In which life is celebrated and only when you open your eyes do you truly see the world around you and can feel grateful for the life you’ve been given. This struck me because having dealt with depression throughout my life I have always had this desire to know and believe life is what I want instead of death. And from watching that video I understood that there is so much about life that makes it better than anything else and makes it something I truly should want.

Our teacher had us eat 3 raisins today. This may sound weird at first but the practice was amazingly beneficial. The 1^st raisin he told us to eat as we would normally. The 2^nd raisin he told us to focus on the aspects of it. To focus on the texture and the taste and how it changes. To be aware of the process it takes to eat this raisin. The 3^rd raisin he told us to stop. To think of all the things that went into making this raisin. That the Buddhists believe that everything is apart of each other. Sunlight went into the creation of the raisin, nutrients from the soil, water, care all went into this raisin. To think when you eat this raisin that you are consuming everything that has contributed to making it what it is. 

Love

So I read this quote today:

A woman is not written in braille, you don’t have to touch her to know her.  -Unknown

 

 

And it honestly seriously caught my attention. My first thought was damn. . . . that's so true. But why do we, as women, so often believe that the only way we are to let men know we love them is to allow them to touch us? So many women, and I think a lot of you can agree with me, regret many of the physical situations they have had with men and feel pressured to rush ahead in many experiences. Why? Because almost every single person has only ever wanted to be known. Not their bodies be known. . . but their mind, their soul, and their heart. Distance makes the heart grow fonder. We have all heard that quote but have any of us really ever sat down and broken it down? What does it really mean? Is it that distance allows people to step apart and away from each other and out of each others arms so that they can truly begin to understand the other person for who they are?

 

Your naked body should only belong to those who fall in love with your naked soul. -Charlie Chaplin

That made me stop and think as well. It made me truly question my life and those of people I know. Intimacy is only meant to come when we are able to bare our heart with someone. . . otherwise it is purely lust. And I began to ask myself. . . have I truly opened up to anyone that much as to allow myself to share more than just my heart? Then it made me think back to past relationships I've had and how I have regretted decisions I've made and the things I've done regardless of it be something as simple as holding hands or kissing. And I asked myself why. And the answer I came up with was exactly that quote. I shared myself with them before I shared myself.

Then I was reminded of one of my old relationships with this horrible guy who only ever wanted my body and if he didn't get what he wanted he would emotionally tear me down and I was reminded of what people told me. They told me I deserved better and then I stumbled upon this quote: 

Everyone tells you that you deserve better but no one is willing to give it to you.

And I just froze. I almost broke down because that was exactly what I had felt for years. People told me I deserved someone great and wonderful but at the same time nobody was willing to give me that. No one was willing to give me the time of day they told me I deserved. No one was willing to give me the love they told me I deserved. And then I thought. . . was it because they knew they weren't strong enough to give it? And they knew that someone eventually would come along who was? But then it got me thinking about, isn't that just relying on the future and karma to be exact?

And in the end, we were all just humans. . . 

drunk on the idea that love, only love, 

could heal our brokenness. 

 

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

Sleep Never Seems to Come

I honestly have to say that sometimes I hate these borderline 'manic' phases I have. . . that I get about every couple months. I can't sleep. I never can. It is 12:30am and I have been up since 7am. Am I tired? Of course not. Could I fall asleep? Not if I tried. I am not tired. I am full of energy and need to go run or something. I can't even focus on anything right now. Like I keep getting distracted while trying to write this. Obviously I have not been stimulated enough today and this is definitely a sign for me that I need to start finding time to exercise again. I need to wear myself out.

But this is really begin to annoy me. The last few nights I haven't gone to bed before 2am. Why? I can't sleep. And every morning I am up at or before 7am. Do I have trouble getting up? Not really. Besides the fact I'm comfortable, I am not tired when I wake up. I need sleep though because I know that it will hit me in a few days.

It's just annoying because during the day too, I'm not tired. And my days seem to go by so quickly. I have been up for almost 16 hours and I feel like I woke up 2 hours ago. My day was a blur even though it was completely boring and pointless.

The troubling thing for me though is I know I'm tired. Like my eyes are heavy but my body is not tired. My mind is not tired. It is racing. My body is awake. I know I'm exhausted but there is no way for me to sleep. I don't feel exhausted but I know I must be.

Well time to go lay in bed for an hour and try to fall asleep. . .

Putting All My Eggs in One Basket

So I find that the last week I have been so happy. And I know what you may be saying. . . "wow. This girl is so bipolar. Always up and down." But in reality it's mainly my own fault I am like that. Majority of the time it is my own thoughts that bring me down, and then my understanding of my thoughts that bring me back up.

I think I am just more surprised I have been this content this week despite the fairly numerous disagreements I have had with people, my boyfriend in particular. He may be upset by me sharing these things but I know he'll forgive me. It started last monday when my therapist made a remark that she thought I tend to with hold my heart from people. That it's hard for me to "put all my eggs in one basket" so to say. She also made a comment about how she believed

several years ago, I shut off some part of me that prevented me from truly giving my feelings over to someone. I have a hard time trusting and it really got me thinking. I went over to my boyfriend's later that day for their Air Force POW/MIA Vigil. (side note: I love seeing my boyfriend in uniform. There's just something about a man in a uniform that is just so damn attractive ;) anyways. sidetracking) I started talking to him about what my therapist had said. He truly agreed and we had a longish discussion on how hard it is for me to trust people. Several days prior we had gotten into another disagreement about people walking away from me. We discussed how my therapist called me emotionally immature and how when certain situations arise I tend to act out of the same age whenever it first arose in my life. It was a conversation that was very needed and I'm glad we had.
I just have to say that I am so blessed to have this man in my life. He is there for me through all my emotional shit and is so patient with me and my learning of proper emotional health.

After Monday, I felt even closer to him than I have felt and I really felt my doubts and reservations about our relationship slowly begin to vanish. I began to embrace my feelings for him. My feelings of love, dedication, loyalty, caring, affection, devotion, adoration, desire, and passion. I literally had the one phrase my therapist told me running through my head. "Let yourself feel. I want you to actually trust him and I want you to feel like it's the worst thing in the world if you were to lose him." And I did.

Later in the week I found messages on his phone. Or saw I should say. And I knew they were something he had mentioned awhile back about his relationship with this good friend of his (a girl). And I knew I never had an issue with it before but that suddenly just struck me. I instantly had the instant fear of potential loss. And not a physical loss. . . but an emotional one. I instantly had the thought that I have finally opened up and finally allowed myself to feel and here I was at the point where I felt like he was pulling away. My next thoughts were that of beating myself up for being so stupid as to trust another person again and I got angry. When I left, I remember driving in my car and just having tears streaming down my face. And I remember telling myself to just feel. To stop getting angry and to not close myself off, to not hold resentment and to instead just feel for once. I bawled. There was a time where I about needed to pull over. I did after a while so as to write a message to my boyfriend about everything I felt. Now this may all sound pathetic but you need to understand why I felt this way. I felt unimportant. As a girl, we have this innate desire to be pursued or at least desired and I didn't feel either. I felt as if this friend of his had more of him than I did in this emotional way. And I don't want to seem clingy or over protective because that has nothing to do with it. It had nothing to do with him talking to her. It had to do with how he was talking to her and how he treated me. I think what bugged me though about the way he talked to her was because I knew their past and how they had discussed at one point being more than friends but how that would never work. It's the fact that that had even been discussed that bugs me. It has been thrown on the table. It was once a possibility. It would have been different if one of them would have been totally uninterested in the other as more than that but they both were interested at one point and that is what bugged me. And I just wanted to feel cherished and like his. I didn't want to be another one of "those girls". I wanted to be the only girl he called his. I still want that. And I don't think that is an insane thing to ask of your significant other. . . anyways. Enough of that. We had a huge long discussion and resolved a lot of it.

Anyways. There is more but I don't think you all need to know that.

My whole point was that despite all this conflict, I feel more at peace than I have all semester. I feel like I am finally at a point where I feel like I am doing the right thing with my life and I am beginning to understand so many things in a different light. In a more educated light I guess you could say. But I am happy and that's what matters. I finally feel like my life is finally going in a direction. It is going somewhere and I have a better idea of what I am doing. I'm not at a loss anymore. And that's what matters.

But growing up still scares me. I may know, generally, what I'm doing but I still am terrified of what the future is going to bring. It scares me to think that I am going to be all on my own soon. . . the very thing I have always wanted. So why is it that now it is the very thing I fear? At least I will have my two best friends helping me and by my side. And now that I am on good speaking terms with my family, I will have them as well. I can't imagine what it would be like to not have the support group I have. Even though it is small, it is bigger than some. And I don't even want to think of what it would be like without them all. I am honestly extremely blessed to have the people in my life that I do.

Freedom

I feel like these two quotes are so interlinked yet so independent of each other, it's not even funny.

Over thinking things leads to negative thoughts but by letting your happiness depend on something you may lose leads to over thinking. Over thinking about whether or not you will lose that something or someone and every little thing that is said or done. I find I over think things so much. I over think the future and every little action I am doing now. I think about how this will affect the future I want. The problem is I don't know what the fuck I want for my future. I have certain things I say I want but in reality they are only what other people have said they want for me. I just want to be free. That is all I want. And what that looks like I don't care. I just want to be happy with where I am and I know I would be happy anywhere. I just want to not worry about having to 'achieve' something or being 'perfect'. I don't want to be tied down. I want to be free. I want to have the opportunity to leave whenever I want. I want to travel. I don't want to be tied to anyone or anything and I don't want people telling me what to do. . . maybe this is why I find I always have this attraction to guys who don't give a shit about anything. Who are spontaneous and have the belief that 'rules are just guidelines'. I find I always crave stimulation from exhilarating things and I find that since I often see myself as a 'free-spirit' that I desire someone who is the same. Someone who still has morals and standards but who is willing to be crazy in circumstances and isn't afraid to get caught or in trouble. Not a "bad boy" mind you. . . just someone who is who they are and who doesn't feel an overwhelming need to follow rules or be 'good'. Who is fine just being. Someone who will not judge me for the things I do or try to stop me from doing the things I enjoy but someone who will let me do those things or even join me in them. Someone who is spontaneous and takes me with them on their adventures; carefree, relaxing, fun-loving, and who understands. Someone who could drop everything in a minutes notice and run away. Who doesn't let their life here tie them down to living a completely different life.

Sometimes I think that I would be totally fine living in a little van or car and traveling the united states by road. In fact, that sounds like something that would be entertaining. I love road trips. I love them even more when you don't even have a plan. So I think that living out of the car/van would be even more fun. To just take a few months to drive and meet people and trek through lands and see sights and have fun. That sounds fun to me. 

Anyways. It hit me today. . . pretty hard. . . that I only have less than 2 months left at this school I have called home for so long. I was there today and I had the thought "I am going to miss this place." It was the one place that got me out of my house during my junior and senior year and it is the one place I have ever felt accepted. Everyone who is there is in the same boat. They don't know what they are doing with their lives. All they know is that they are learning and having fun. There is such a sense of community at Normandale it's not even funny. Everyone is so carefree and comfortable with each other. As long as you are open to meeting people, they will be open to you. Classes are like self-help groups, especially the psych classes, but I have definitely had that in other classes like biology, literature, health, history, and even my statistics class. I just realized how important the sense of community is and how I will be losing that starting in a little under 2 months. I honestly think I will cry when I have to leave that place. 

Memories

November 6th, and was welcomed this morning by the crisp, wet whiteness that is always accompanied by the first snow fall of the year. Hard to believe we are approaching the end of another year and starting to welcome in the next one. This year has seemed to fly by faster then any other before it and I ask myself why that is. Is it because I was finally able to experience the life I had always wanted to? Was it because I actually enjoyed almost everyday instead of wishing and waiting for better ones ahead? Or maybe it was simply because I had so much happening that time just flew by. Either way this year has brought so much to my life and now it is slowly ending. I was filled with a bitter sweetness this morning of my past year; of the people I have left behind or more truthfully, have left me behind; of the situations I was in and the things that occurred during these situations; of the healing that took place as well as the pain. I close my eyes and I can't even begin to tell you where each day ended and each day began. It's all a blur and a mixing pot of memories. I find as I get older, my memories slowly fade and as they fade so does my memory in general. I find it is growing exceedingly harder and harder to remember things that have happened in my life and I often wonder why that is. If it is my brain's own response to forgetting the past and creating a new, better future, or if instead it is my own awareness of my past that is slowly getting buried in the ruins of life. Either way, I find I live less and less in the past and part of that must be contributing to my forgetfulness. And I have a strange mix of emotions towards this. I have a melancholy feeling. One of sadness that I forget the happy and sad of my past but then happiness to the fact that I am no longer living out my life based on my past and instead in my present and future.